Drama

The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)

A love letter to movies (and the French new wave of the 1960s in particular), Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers starts with a 1968 riot outside of a Parisian movie palace then burrows into an insular love triangle. Matthew (Michael Pitt, Hedwig and the Angry Inch), an expatriate American student, bonds with a twin brother and sister, Isabelle (Eva Green) and Theo (Louis Garrel), over their mutual love of film--they not only quote lines of dialogue, they act out small bits and challenge each other to name the cinematic source. Matthew suspects the twins of incest, but that doesn't stop him from falling into his own intimacies with Isabelle. As the threesome becomes threatened, Paris succumbs to student riots. The Dreamers aspires to be kinky, but the results are more decorative than decadent; nonetheless, the movie's lively energy recalls the careless and vital exuberance of Godard and Truffaut. --Bret Fetzer

From Academy Award®-winning director Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor, 1987), comes an erotic tale of three young film lovers brought together by their passion for movies -- and each other. When Isabelle and Theo (Eva Green, Louis Garrel) invite Matthew (Michael Pitt) to stay with them, what begins as a casual friendship ripens into a sensual voyage of discovery and desire in which nothing is off limits and anything is possible. Featuring an engaging, seductive cast, The Dreamers is a ?spellbinding, provocative feast!" (Ebert & Roeper)

Babette's Feast

Some movies can only be described as delicious. In Babette's Feast, a woman flees the French civil war and lands in a small seacoast village in Denmark, where she comes to work for two spinsters, devout daughters of a puritan minister. After many years, Babette unexpectedly wins a lottery, and decides to create a real French dinner--which leads the sisters to fear for their souls. Joining them for the meal will be a Danish general who, as a young soldier, courted one of the sisters, but she turned him away because of her religion. The village elders all resolve not to enjoy the meal, but can their moral fiber resist the sensual pleasure of Babette's cooking? Babette's Feast deservedly won the 1987 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This lovely movie is impeccably simple, yet its slender narrative contains a wealth of humor, melancholy, and hope. --Bret Fetzer

Artistic, sensual and sacred passions unite in Babette's Feast. Written and directed by Gabriel Axel, from a short story by Out of Africa's Isak Dinesen, this Oscar(r)-winning*film offers "an irresistible mixture of dry wit and robust humanity" (Newsweek). Onthe desolate coast of Denmark live Martina and Philippa, the beautiful daughters of a devout clergyman who preaches salvation through self-denial. Both girls sacrifice youthful passion to faith and duty, and even many years after their father's death, they keep his austere teachings alive among thetownspeople. But with the arrival of Babette, a mysterious refugee from France's civil war, life for the sisters and their tiny hamlet begins to change. Soon, Babette has convinced them to try something truly outrageousa gourmet French meal! Her feast, of course, scandalizes the local elders. Just who is this strangely talented Babette, who has terrified this pious town with the prospect of losing their souls for enjoying too much earthly pleasure? *1987: Foreign Language Film

Hamlet

Franco Zeffirelli's stripped-down, two-hour version of Shakespeare's play stars Mel Gibson as a rather robust version of the ambivalent Danish prince. Gibson is much better in the part than many critics have admitted, his powers of clarity doing much to make this particular Hamlet more accessible than several other filmed versions. The supporting cast is outstanding, including Glenn Close as Gertrude, Alan Bates as Claudius, Ian Holm as Polonius, and Helena Bonham Carter as Ophelia. Zeffirelli's vigorous direction employs a lively camera style that nicely alters the viewer's preconceptions about the way Hamlet should look. --Tom Keogh

Treachery. Madness. Murder. The story of Hamlet has been told for 400 years...but it's never been told like this! Mel Gibson (the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon films) takes on his richest part to date, the title role in a dynamic new version of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Directed by Franco Zeffirelli (Romeo and Juliet, Jesus of Nazareth), the location-shot production has a sumptuous look that won Academy Award nominations for Art Direction and Costume Design. Gibson plays the prince of medieval-era Denmark, who senses treachery behind his royal father's death. Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons) plays Hamlet's mother Gertrude, all too dangerously entangled in that treachery. A brilliant supporting cast, including Alan Bates as Claudius, Paul Scofield as the ghost of Hamlet's father, Ian Holm as Polonius and Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia, adds its powerful presence to this immortal tale of high adventure and evil deeds. Big, bold and heroic, this is a vivid and virile Hamlet for the modern age and all time.

Il Postino

Italian star and filmmaker Massimo Troisi was dying of heart failure even before this film, his dream project, began production, and he prevailed upon British director Michael Radford (White Mischief) to see him and the film through to the end. (The 40-year-old Troisi, a beloved comic actor in Italy, died the day production wrapped.) Based on true events, Troisi plays a shy postman who strikes up an unlikely friendship with exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret). Through Neruda's example and tutelage, the hero learns to think of his Italian fishing village in lyrical terms, as well as how to talk to women and even find the strength to take his political stands. Sweet as it is, the film finally pushes beyond its charming borders to become an even more complex and poignant story about the pain of growing into one's destiny. --Tom Keogh

Cheered by critics and audiences everywhere, IL POSTINO (THE POSTMAN) is the record-breaking Academy Award(R)-winning (Best Dramatic Score, 1995) romantic comedy that delivers heartfelt laughs! Mario is a bumbling mailman who's madly in love with the most beautiful woman in town ... and who's too shy to tell her how he feels. But when a world-famous poet -- Pablo Neruda -- moves into town, Mario is inspired. With Neruda's help, he finds the right words to win the woman's heart! This unforgettably funny comedy proves that passion ... with some artful deception ... can win the most improbable love!

The Pianist

Winner of the prestigious Golden Palm award at the 2002 Cannes film festival, The Pianist is the film that Roman Polanski was born to direct. A childhood survivor of Nazi-occupied Poland, Polanski was uniquely suited to tell the story of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew and concert pianist (played by Adrien Brody) who witnessed the Nazi invasion of Warsaw, miraculously eluded the Nazi death camps, and survived throughout World War II by hiding among the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto. Unlike any previous dramatization of the Nazi holocaust, The Pianist steadfastly maintains its protagonist's singular point of view, allowing Polanski to create an intimate odyssey on an epic wartime scale, drawing a direct parallel between Szpilman's tenacious, primitive existence and the wholesale destruction of the city he refuses to abandon. Uncompromising in its physical and emotional authenticity, The Pianist strikes an ultimate note of hope and soulful purity. As with Schindler's List, it's one of the greatest films ever made about humanity's darkest chapter. --Jeff Shannon

The Lover

Lovely to look at, this story reveals little more than the characters' nude bodies. Like couples whose only attraction is physical, this has little to offer once it leaves the bedroom. We never learn the interests or inner workings of the lovers in question. They become nothing more than attractive bodies, which makes this little more than a shallow exercise in sexuality. The story is based on the controversial, and supposedly autobiographical, bestseller by experimental French novelist Marguerite Duras. It tells the story of a young French schoolgirl who becomes sexually involved with a sophisticated, older Asian man. Set in Indochina in the late 1920s, this is stunningly photographed and artfully directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. That said, the lack of a more satisfying plot means this is merely tastefully produced soft porn. --Rochelle O'Gorman

From the novel of the same namewhich has sold over one million copies in 43 languagesthis "sophisticated adaptation of Marguerite Duras' best-selling memoirs" (Variety) smolders on the screen. "Masterfully acted and beautifully photographed" (Critics' Choice), The Lover brilliantly captures the essence of sexual awakening and forbidden desire like no other film has donebeforeor since. Jane March is mesmerizing in the role of a poor French teenager who engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir (Tony Leung) in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters. But though the lovers are able to transcend their differences in age, race and class'theirs is a future that French colonial Vietnamese society will never allow.

Irreversible

Alex and Marcus are a couple whose story is told over the course of a fateful evening in a series of long takes. An emotional odyssey that unspools in reverse from gut-wrenching violence to sweetly observed moments of sublime tenderness.System Requirements:Starring Albert Dupontel Monica Bellucci Vincent Cassel Directed by Noe Running time: 97 minutes Copyright Lion's Gate 2003Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: NR UPC: 658149815926 Manufacturer No: ST8159D

Irreversible begins with the closing credits running backwards before the film begins (or ends) with Marcus (Vincent Cassell) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) being escorted out of a gay S&M club by the cops, Marcus with his arm broken and Pierre in handcuffs. The "story" proceeds to unwind in a series of single-take scenes that unfold Memento-style, with each scene giving more context to what we have seen previously. Each scenario depicts actions, dialogue, incident, behavior, and circumstances that the lead characters might have wished didn't happen, ranging from extreme violence through awkward social situations to mild embarrassment. The central character (and possible dreamer of this whole what-if story) emerges as Alex (Monica Bellucci), who suffers the worst in a very hard-to-watch rape sequence in an underpass. Semi-improvised, the scenes all have attack and power as themes, with later/earlier conversational sequences that suggest life isn't all sexual assaults in the dark, showing equal cinematic imagination with the horrors. Arguably, this is not a film most would subject themselves to twice, but it is something that stays in the mind for days after viewing, sparking far more ideas and emotions than most wallow-in-nastiness pictures. --Kim Newman

Romance

Claiming he lived her but that he has lost his desire for her Matie s boyfriend Pul refuses to engage in sexual relations catapulting Matie into a desperate search for intimacy and erotic connection. Marie s escalating sexual journey tests he own physical and emotional limits and through and ironic twist-of-fate eventually leads her to fulfillmentSystem Requirements: Running Time 98 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 031398724933

Cyrano de Bergerac

Director Jean-Paul Rappeneau and cowriter Jean-Claude Carriere had the brilliant idea of casting France's most lovably vulnerable hunk, the massive Gerard Depardieu, in one of French literature's meatiest roles: the sword-wielding poet Cyrano. Equipped with a massive nose and a heart to match, Depardieu soars as the heart-broken soldier who must lend his words of love to another man to woo the woman he yearns for. Rappeneau spared no expense in taking this Edmond Rostand play into realistic locations for the battle scenes in the second act, making the film as exciting as it is romantic and funny. Depardieu attacks the role in great gulps, consuming all the oxygen in any room he enters. Macho but sensitive, he creates a larger-than-life Cyrano, whose wrenching sadness at the lack of interest from his lady love will have you reaching for the tissues. --Marshall Fine

One of France's literary treasures commands the screen with this "exceptionally graceful adaptation" (Los Angeles Times) that received a Best Foreign Film Golden GlobeÂ(r) and five OscarÂ(r) nominations*, including Best Actor for Gerard Depardieu! Cyrano (Depardieu), a master swordsman and poet, feels he cannot woo his beloved Roxane (Anne Brochet) due to an unfortunate physical flaw: his grotesquely large nose. Resigning himself to helping another suitor, the dashing yet tongue-tied Christian (Vincent Perez), Cyrano uses his mastery of words to win Roxane forhim. But when Roxane finds that she has fallen for Christian's mindand not for his beautywhich of her two suitors will finally possess her heart? *1990: Foreign Language Film, Art Direction-Set Decoration, Costume Design (won), Makeup

The Power of One

The Power of One is an intriguing story of a young English boy named P.K. and his passion for changing the world. Growing up he suffered as the only English boy in an Afrikaans school. Soon orphaned, he was placed in the care of a German national named Professor von Vollensteen (a.k.a. "Doc"), a friend of his grandfather. Doc develops P.K.'s piano talent and P.K. becomes "assistant gardener" in Doc's cactus garden. It is not long after WWII begins that Doc is placed in prison for failure to register with the English government as a foreigner. P.K. makes frequent visits and meets Geel Piet, an inmate, who teaches him to box. Geel Piet spreads the myth of the Rainmaker, the one who brings peace to all of the tribes. P.K. is cast in the light of this myth. After the war P.K. attends an English private school where he continues to box. He meets a young girl, Maria, with whom he falls in love. Her father, Professor Daniel Marais, is a leader of the Nationalist Party of South Africa. The two fight to teach the natives English as P.K.'s popularity grows via the myth. Maria is killed. P.K. looses focus until he sees the success of his language school among the tribes. He and Guideon Duma continue the work in hopes of building a better future for Africa.