Mystery & Suspense

Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (Import All Regions)

Rebecca is an ageless, timeless adult movie about a woman who marries a widower but fears she lives in the shadow of her predecessor. This was Hitchcock's first American feature, and it garnered the Best Picture statue at the 1941 Academy Awards. In today's films, most twists and surprises are ridiculous or just gratuitous, so it's sobering to look back on this film where every revelation not only shocks, but makes organic sense with the story line. Laurence Olivier is dashing and weak, fierce and cowed. Joan Fontaine is strong yet submissive, defiant yet accommodating. There isn't a false moment or misstep, but the film must have killed the employment outlook of any women named Danvers for about 20 years. Brilliant stuff. --Keith Simanton *** LICENSED AND MANUFACTURED DVD IMPORTED FROM SOUTH KOREA *** NTSC ALL REGIONS *** ENGLISH LANGUAGE WITH OPTIONAL ENGLISH AND KOREAN SUBTITLES ***

The Machinist

As a bleak and chilling mood piece, The Machinist gets under your skin and stays there. Christian Bale threw himself into the title role with such devotion that he shed an alarming 63 pounds to play Trevor Reznik (talk about "starving artist"!), a factory worker who hasn't slept in a year. He's haunted by some mysterious occurrence that turned him into a paranoid husk, sleepwalking a fine line between harsh reality and nightmare fantasy--a state of mind that leaves him looking disturbingly gaunt and skeletal in appearance. (It's no exaggeration to say that Bale resembles a Holocaust survivor from vintage Nazi-camp liberation newsreels.) In a cinematic territory far removed from his 1998 romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland, director Brad Anderson orchestrates a grimy, nocturnal world of washed-out blues and grays, as Trevor struggles to assemble the clues of his psychological conundrum. With a friendly hooker (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and airport waitress (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón) as his only stable links to sanity, Trevor reaches critical mass and seems ready to implode just as The Machinist reveals its secrets. For those who don't mind a trip to hell with a theremin-laced soundtrack, The Machinist seems primed for long-term status as a cult thriller on the edge. --Jeff Shannon

After not being able to sleep for over a year, a withered and confused industrial factory worker begins to question his sanity.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-JUN-2005
Media Type: DVD

Irreversible

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

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

Twin Peaks - Fire Walk with Me

Alternately fascinating and frustrating--and no doubt deliberately so on both counts--this controversial Twin Peaks installment (it was roundly booed by mystified audiences at the Cannes Film Festival) appeared in theaters after the series was canceled, serving as both prequel and coda to the whole remarkable Twin Peaks phenomenon. Designed especially for dedicated followers of the series (it would just bewilder anyone else), Fire Walk with Me further investigates the murder of Laura Palmer by exploring events that took place before the series's brilliant debut feature (Twin Peaks: The Premiere), up to and including the long, dark, terrible night of Laura's death. Familiar Twin Peaks denizens Sheryl Lee, Grace Zabriskie, and Ray Wise (as the three members of the Palmer family), Kyle MacLachlan, Peggy Lipton, James Marshall, Dana Ashbrook, Miguel Ferrer, Mädchen Amick, and director David Lynch himself reprise their series roles (with Moira Kelly subbing for Lara Flynn Boyle as Donna Hayward), joined by an equally motley group of guest stars, including Harry Dean Stanton, David Bowie, Chris Isaak, and Kiefer Sutherland. --Jim Emerson

Shows the week preceding and leading up to the death of Laura Palmer in the small town of Twin Peaks.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 26-FEB-2002
Media Type: DVD

Uncovered

Based on a Novel by the author of "The Ninth Gate" comes a chilling murder mysterystarring Kate Beckinsale! While restoring an old painting showing a woman and twomen playing chess young beautiful art expert Julia (Beckinsale) discovers the text"who killed the knight" underneath the paint. The owner of the painting tells her thatone of his forefathers was killed the painting might identify the murderer. WhenJulia's friend is killed she understands that there is more to it. She consults Domeneca chess genius who reconstructs the game from the painting. With any piece he takessomebody dies. The game becomes reality and her next move.. . could be her last!System Requirements: Running Time 112 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MYSTERY/SUSPENSE Rating: NR UPC: 012236151074 Manufacturer No: 15107

The Transporter

Move over, Vin Diesel, because The Transporter, Hong Kong action veteran Corey Yuen's English-language directorial debut, is revving up to steal your thunder. As the other top-billed action star to emerge in 2002, British hunk Jason Statham--previously seen in Snatch, Ghosts of Mars, and The One--plays a hard-driving courier for well-heeled underworld clients. He follows simple rules: (1) Stick to the deal; (2) Don't ask names; and (3) Don't look in the packages he transports. All's well until he violates rule 3, discovering a Chinese beauty (Qi Shu) in the trunk of his tricked-out BMW, and foiling a deadly plot to smuggle Chinese slaves through the port of Marseilles. The first hour is ass-kickin' fun, and the stuntwork is impressive throughout, even as the plot degenerates into a predictable series of bone-breaking showdowns. Statham boasts an appealing combination of brains and brawn, suggesting the suave versatility of a promising career. Coproduced by action auteur Luc Besson and filmed on dazzling French locations, The Transporter is an action fan's delight. --Jeff Shannon

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is the best as what he does: transporting dangerous or illegal goods with no questions asked. But his last shipment, a beautiful young woman kidnapped by international slave traders, brings deadly complications to his delivery plans. Now Frank must kick into overdrive in a nonstop action-packed fight to save his precious cargo - and his life.

Audition (Uncut Special Edition)

If you want the full sledgehammer-to-the-stomach effect of Audition, stop reading this review now. Just watch it and take the consequences. At first glance, Takashi Miike's jack in the box of a movie works like a romantic comedy: amiable widower Shigeharu Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) decides it's time to find a new wife, and a friend suggests holding a fake audition to find the right girl. It soon becomes clear that there is something wrong with Aoyama's choice. This is no ordinary Fatal Attraction-style thriller, however; Audition slowly and carefully builds into a wrenching exploration of both deep male fears and the stereotype of the cute, submissive Japanese woman. Audition is by no means an easy movie to watch--even hardcore horror fans may have trouble--but it will stay with you for a long, long time. --Ali Davis

Blow Up

This 1966 masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni (The Passenger) is set in the heady atmosphere of Swinging London, and stars David Hemmings as an unsmiling fashion photographer hooked on ephemeral meaning attached to anything: art, sex, work, relationships, drugs, events. When a real mystery falls into his lap, he probes the evidence for some reliable truth, but finds it hard to reckon with. Vanessa Redgrave plays an enigmatic woman whose desperation to cover something up only seems like one more phenomenon in Hemmings's disinterested purview. This is one of the key films of the decade, and still an unsettling and lasting experience. --Tom Keogh

Taking photographs of a couple making love proves deadly when the photographer enlarges the image and discovers murder. The film and pictures are stolen from his studio and the body vanishes. In this elegant balance of deciet and trickery the photographer must question the reality of what he has actually seen.Running Time: 111 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569513525

Don't Look Now

Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now once seemed radically new with its kaleidoscopic imagery, dreamlike editing, and willingness to let mystery be mysterious on several levels of reality/illusion--plus art-house darling Julie Christie in a long, nude love scene! Nowadays, this 1974 adaptation of a Daphne du Maurier ghost story looks almost classical. Following the drowning of their child in England, Laura (Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) have come to dank, eternally dying Venice, where he is supervising the restoration of a moldering church and she is either slipping into or climbing out of madness with the help of a pair of creepy spinster sisters, one of whom can "see" even though blind. John may share this psychic power, though he resists accepting it as the canals fill with murder victims, surface realities turn shimmery as water, and a red-coated figure--the daughter's ghost?--keeps flickering in the corner of our vision. Though surreal and perplexing, the film does eventually add up, and the ending remains a real throat-grabber. --Richard T. Jameson

Working with elements of the traditional horror genre - second sight, ESP, warnings from the dead, a mad killer - and a cinematography of disquieting beauty and dreamlike sense of dislocation, director Nicolas Roeg weaves a fabric of anxiety that questions all reality. The evocative use of the back streets of Venice is a sinister participant in the action based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier. This intensely erotic and macabre film boasts outstanding performances by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.

Dead Calm

There are several occasions when this rousing Australian thriller from 1987 should have ended with a well-placed shot from a speargun or a stronger knot of rope, but you don't think about these nit-picky details when you're being scared out of your wits. In a role that catapulted her to international stardom, Nicole Kidman plays a young wife who's joined her husband (Sam Neill) on a yachting trip to recover from the tragic death of their son. Far out to sea, they encounter a sinking ship with one survivor (Billy Zane, ten years before Titanic), but inviting him aboard turns out to be a very bad mistake. While Neill attempts to salvage the sinking boat, Kidman is fighting for her life against the psychotic Zane--a villain so creepy that you eagerly look forward to his demise. By the time that moment arrives director Phillip Noyce has resorted to a typical slasher-movie climax (proving that no boat should be without a flare gun), but until then Dead Calm is a nail-biting thriller that's guaranteed to keep you in a state of nail-biting suspense. To accommodate the widescreen compositions on the open ocean, the DVD offers the film in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. --Jeff Shannon

A suspense thriller about a husband and wife, recovering from a personal tragedy, who encounter a stranger while cruising their boat in the Pacific and become ensnared in a drama of mystery, high emotions and extreme danger.