J&R in Foreign DVDs & Videos

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PORN THEATER, as its title suggests, covers a day in the life of a Parisian pornographic cinema, foregrounding its marginalized male patrons and their activities inside. Because the film cuts between only three locations--the ticket area, the main viewing theater, and the grungy, yellow bathroom--it effectively seals off the world outside, providing the viewer with a heightened sense of containment. An extraordinary amount of screentime is given to the spectators in the theater simply watching the film, the effect of which is almost Hitchcockean in the sense of cinematic double entendre--as one watches the characters in the movie viewing a movie, one becomes conscious of the architecture of the theater, the mechanics of film projection, and the other viewers. When PORN THEATER draws to a close, then, it is no surprise the pornographic film the characters watch also comes to conclusion, and everyone must leave their respective theaters more or less together. The film additionally makes comment on disease and desire and provides comic relief, though mostly at the expense of one hirsute drag queen. As one might also expect from the title, the film carries a ton of sexual content, though only between the male patrons of the theater, unsure as to whether they've come to reinforce their heterosexual desires through the movie or to cruise the other customers for homosexual encounters.

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Ricardo (Marco Filiberti) is the son of an affluent Italian upper-crust family; he is also, unbeknownst to them, a very popular and flamboyant gay porn star who goes by the name of Riki Kandinsky. When he is forced to attend his father's funeral, he causes waves with his perfect hair and mascara. He endeavors to keep his identity from those in attendance, and is for the most part successful However, when his brother Federico visits Riki's Rome apartment to work out the details of the will, as well as to reconnect with his estranged brother, things take a decidedly different turn. Riki is forced to confess his lifestyle to his brother, and Federico is at first shocked, but moves on to acceptance. The two rekindle their relationship when Federico helps Riki adopt a young boy who has recently come into his life.

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Spanish actress turned director Laura Mana delivers an enchanting fable, by turns funny and achingly poignant, and seasoned with a bit of magical realism. Opening in black-and-white and set in a dull, drab Mexican town, the inhabitants of the film are beset by a bad case of the doldrums: the kids are taciturn, the adults are listless, and the elderly are afflicted. Among them, Dolores (Elisabeth Margoni, LOVE, ACTUALLY) stands out as a pious, big-hearted, and lovable woman, but her husband leaves her because he finds her undiluted goodness difficult to stomach. Shocked, hurt and angry, Dolores goes to bed with the first man who asks her, and soon she is providing all of the love-starved men of the town with the intimacy they have been missing. The changes are immeasurable and color is brought back into the lives of all the villagers, until problems arise in the form of the local prostitutes whose business has been hurt. Dolores's husband also returns and demands a stop to her behavior, forcing Delores to make a difficult decision. Mana delivers a beautiful, life-affirming, feminist take on the conservative mores of small-town life.

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Young and in love, newlyweds Helene (Mary Johnson) and Sommer (William Dieterle, who also directed) endure an enforced separation when the accidental death of a nightclub owner--who was harassing Helene and incurred her husband's wrath--lands Sommer in jail. There his sexual longing finds other outlets in the absence of women, namely with a handsome young cellmate. Meanwhile, Helene aches for the comfort of her husband's embrace, and she finds solace in the arms of her kind employer. Exemplary of the creative freedom and unfettered cultural mores of Germany's Weimar period, this gem of the silent period was later banned under Nazi law. Dieterle's treatment of his subject matter is remarkable both for its lack of inhibition and its mixture of melodrama and eroticism with genuine tenderness. The stunning photography, craft, and restrained, subtle performances make this film an enduring masterpiece.

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In the midst of World War II, as the tide turns against the Axis, a German U-boat crew is sent out to patrol the Atlantic and fire at Allied ships bringing supplies to England. The submarine also carries a press correspondent, there to report from the front lines of nautical warfare. Meanwhile, the crew's captain (Jürgen Prochnow) is becoming disillusioned with the Nazi regime and with war in general. What starts out as a routine mission is soon livened up beyond the crew's expectations when their boat's surprise attack on a convoy is thwarted by a fast-moving destroyer. Battered by depth charges, the crew must pull together to survive the attacks of their unseen enemy. Widely considered to be director Wolfgang Petersen's best film and one of the finest German films ever made, DAS BOOT is stunningly realistic in its portrayal of the cramped conditions aboard a German submarine. Based on a novel by Lothar G. Buchheim, it is a striking example of an intelligent antiwar film clothed in the guise of a military thriller.

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A hit across the globe, bachata boy-band Aventura leave their adoring fans breathless in this sold-out concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. Joined onstage by a dazzling array of surprise guests--including Miri Ben-Ari, Olga Tanon, El Torito, Toby Love, and Anthony Santos--this live performance features knockout renditions of the songs "Obsesion," "No no no," "Ella y yo," and "Noche de sexo," among many others.

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REBELDE is a Mexican soap opera set in a school for the country's richest teens. Among the elite are a few poor kids whose natural gifts have allowed them entrance to this exclusive institution. When these two markedly different groups meet, the have-nots become the objects of scorn from their wealthier counterparts, resulting in an explosive mix of comedy, drama, and pop-music interludes that would make BEVERLY HILLS 90210 proud. This release presents the sudsy series' third season.

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Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who glides through the streets of Paris as quietly as a mouse. With wide eyes and a tiny grin, she sees the world in a magical light, discovering minor miracles every day. A shy and reserved person whose favorite moments are spent alone skimming stones into the water, Amélie was raised by a pair of eccentrics who falsely diagnosed her with a heart problem at the age of six and so limited her exposure to the outside world. Now a free and independent woman, Amélie wears a bob that curls in every direction and dresses in red. With a job in a café and an aptitude for spying on her neighbors, Amélie entertains herself by enacting a series of homemade, kindhearted practical jokes. She returns a long-forgotten box of childhood knickknacks to its proper owner, she sends her father's garden troll on a trip around the world, and she creates a love connection at the café between the hypochondriac druggist and a beer-drinking old grouch. But when the day is done, Amélie finds one stone unturned, and decides to work her magic on the quirky object of her affections, Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz), whom she has never met. Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who codirected DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN with Marc Caro) presents AMÉLIE, an aesthetically gorgeous and inventive film. The rich, glowing color scheme is offset by flashbacks in black and white archival footage that give short biographies of each character. A soft-spoken narrator guides viewers through this enlightening fairy tale, which sometimes speeds through the streets and other times drifts in slow motion. AMÉLIE is humorous, questioning, and strange, and it will change the lives of all who watch it, if only for a short while after leaving Amélie's world.

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THE SISSI COLLECTION includes the trilogy of romantic films about the Austrian princess: SISSI, THE YOUNG EMPRESS, and SISSI: THE FATEFUL YEARS OF THE EMPRESS. The three movies follow the adventures of Sissi and her husband Kaiser Franz Josef (Karl Heinz Böhm). Romy Schneider (WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT, TRIPLE CROSS), stars as the young princess, who has to endure the frustrations of court life in Vienna and a difficult mother-in-law. This popular series of costume dramas was directed by Ernst Marischka (SEASON IN SALZBURG), and this collection also includes two of his other movies, THE STORY OF VICKI and FOREVER MY LOVE.

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Sense and sensibility are not the only things that meet and mix in this Bollywood adaptation of Austen's classic novel. When East meets West, and audiences meet the two charming sisters at the heart of it's tale, there is no end to the fun, adventure, and romance. Sowmya and Meenakshi have it all: looks, money, and youth. The only thing they lack is the true love they both yearn for. This situation is soon remedied when three suitors, each attractive in very different ways, are introduced into their lives. The level-headed Sowmya continues to put filial obligations ahead of romance, while the impetuous and passionate Meenakshi tries to figure out which one is her "white knight." While Sowmya is courted by a filmmaker who loves her but insists he must finish his first movie before they marry, Meenakshi must choose between a wounded soldier and a charismatic businessman with the heart of a poet. Ultimately, however, the increasing infirmity of the family patriarch may present the girls with some difficulties they are ill-prepared for. A brilliant widescreen extravaganza, I HAVE FOUND IT is the sophomore effort from director Rajiv Menon. It manages to successfully blend comedy, social satire, and familiar genre conceits into a stunning, dazzling musical spectacle that is a delight to behold.

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HISTORIA DE UNA REINA is an apt name for a music video collection from Ana Gabriel, whom some have crowned "La Reina" (Spanish for "The Queen"). This collection assembles music videos that span her impressive career in Latin music.

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In Federico Fellini's seminal film LA DOLCE VITA, a three-hour masterpiece that shows one man's descent into "the sweet life" of debauchery, Marcello Mastroianni stars as eccentric journalist Marcello Rubini. On assignment to chronicle the lives of the rich and famous Italian aristocracy in a gossip column for a Roman newspaper, Marcello floats from one fabulous party to the next, meeting all varieties of beautiful, extravagant people. While he would never protest this seemingly ideal job, it makes him feel lonely and empty, and he stays up drinking and dancing night after night only to wake up each morning unbalanced and unfocused. The film follows Marcello's ups and downs in an episodic pattern in which each evening is a new story, a new adventure, a new dare, a new woman with whom to fall helplessly in love--but only for that night. Each morning the slate is wiped clean, and Fellini resets Marcello's score to zero. Sprinkled with religious images and gestures at salvation, LA DOLCE VITA is supreme in the beauty of its all-encompassing symbolism that is expressed through lavish sets, an alluring script, overemphasized physical movements, roller-coaster jazz music, and helpless emotions.

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A man calls a suicide hotline and falls in love with the woman who takes his call in this erotic drama from director Lee Kang-Sheng.

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Cantinflas stars as a unconventional priest who gets a new position in a small town. The townspeople are skeptical of him, which is not helped by his unconventional ways.

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Fans of hit-making latin music staples Los Caminantes will be pleased to own this music video release.

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Acclaimed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki adapts British writer Diana Wynne Jones's popular fantasy tale for this animated feature, adding his own unique and celebrated dreamlike spin. A young hat-maker named Sophie (voiced by Emily Mortimer) is turned into an old woman by the dreaded Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall) when she attracts the notice of Howl (Christian Bale), a young wizard whom the witch desires for herself. As the old woman, (voiced by Jean Simmons), Sophie finds refuge as a cleaning lady in Howl's magical castle, an impressively realized mishmash of anthropomorphic shafts and gears, where she meets, among other wonders, a cantankerous fire demon named Calcifer (Billy Crystal). Howl's courage inspires her to seek a cure for her curse, and vice versa, and the two work together to prevent a major war as the castle roams the countryside on its mechanical legs. There's lots of magic afoot as well, including travel through barriers of space and time, and shape-shifting, requiring full viewer attention to keep track of who, where, and when, but this how dreams really are and the film engages on that same subconscious level. As with Miyazaki's previous work (SPIRITED AWAY, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE), the emphasis here is on creating a beautiful alternate reality, where anything can happen, and every frame is a breathtaking work of art. See it on the big screen if the chance presents itself; the elaborate intricacies and patiently realized alternate realities of Miyazaki's work makes him a true treasure.

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Bizarre and frequently hilarious, EL CHAVO DEL 8 is a Latin American television show in which adults dress up as children. A simple premise, but one that has garnered millions of viewers over the years, and turned its creator and principle star Roberto Gomez Bolanos into a big celebrity. A selection of episodes from the show is contained on this collection.

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Presented in stereo here are some of bachata favorite Raulin Rodriguez's best-loved songs, including "Derroche de Sexo" and "Ay Hombre." Also featured are a photo gallery and video clips.

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Hector Acosta ("El Torito"), award-winning tropical vocalist and former lead singer of the legendary Toros Band, plays all of his solo hits live on concert film EN VIVO.

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The Hmong are a traditional people residing in the mountains of northern Vietnam. The music of the Hmong is an important part of their culture, which focuses on cultivating beauty and the art of attraction, whether that focus goes to a living person, an ancestor or a spirit.

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REBELDE is a Mexican telenovela based in a school for the country's richest kids. But among the elite are a few children from poorer families whose natural gifts in a number of different fields have allowed them entrance to this exclusive institution. When these two markedly different groups meet, the poverty-stricken kids are tormented by their wealthy counterparts, and some explosive action follows. This release presents the series' first three seasons.

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Hayao Miyazaki's CASTLE IN THE SKY is a rousing adventure that follows an orphan named Sheeta as she eludes the clutches of a secret agent named Muska while trying to discern her family's history. After her first escape from Muska, Sheeta meets up with a young boy named Pazu, whose father, a photographer, was disgraced after he took a picture of the legendary flying island of Laputa and had it dismissed as a hoax. When the two realize that a family heirloom Sheeta carries allows them to levitate, the two begin a search for the lost island, trailed by Muska, who is also searching for Laputa.

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The strange relationship between two women is the subject matter for LA USURPADORA. On meeting, the women are shocked to find how alike they are. A perfect physical match, the two only differ with their directly opposite views on life. While one wears her heart on her sleeve, the other is full of hatred and bile. To make matters worse, the coldhearted half of this curious pair of doppelgangers is caught up in a marriage to a man she doesn't care for. Sensing an out, she forces her lookalike friend to enter into a relationship with her husband so she can enjoy the freedom she so desperately craves. But such activities can only lead to further harm, and as LA USURPADORA reaches it's nail-biting finale, the two women have to make some vital decisions to bring some equilibrium back into to their lives.

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Bollywood and Hollywood entwine for this mix of romance, singing, comedy, dancing, and melodrama, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (DEVDAS) and produced in tandem with Sony/Columbia. The achingly beautiful Rani Mukherjee narrates and appears as Gulab, a streetcorner princess haunting the red light district in an expressionistic melange of Venice, Vegas, and Amsterdam. The irrepressibly callow musician Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) catches her eye, but Raj thinks he's in love with Sakina (Sonam Kapoor) who prefers to pine away for her absent lover, Imaan (Salman Kahn). All this longing (it's based on Dostoyevsky's WHITE NIGHTS) is stunningly captured through bizarre and elaborate backdrops, winding staircases, torrents of rain, and a color scheme heavy on the blues. Fans of Baz Luhrman's MOULIN ROUGE will want to live inside this film: there may not a whole lot of weight to all the tomfoolery, but the pain of youthful romantic idealism is part of the message. The music is always the thing with Bollywood films and SAAWARIYA packs in its share of rousing numbers. Western viewers entering the realm of Bollywood for the first time will find SAAWARIYA ("beloved" in Hindi) to be a crossover film that's ready to welcome them with open arms into a jubilant world of high-spirited song and dance, over-the-top goofiness, anguished melodrama, gyrating hips (with very sexy exposed belly buttons), and PG-rated romance.

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DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER: This tale of luck and love follows a family who are fall into some bad luck when their son loses a jade chip and then marries a woman who doesn't meet his father's approval. EMPRESS WU ZETIAN: The story of Wu Zetian is told here. Zetian was a female ruler of the Zhou Dynasty, and her reign came at a time when women were still stuck in very traditional roles throughout China.

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Returning to the U.S. after more than a decade, Brazilian singer Robert Carlos overwhelmed audiences with this live performance of Spanish-sung songs, including "Emociones," "Detalles," "Cama y Mesa," "Amigo," "Un Million de Amigos," and many others.

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In his final collaboration with Akira Kurosawa, Toshirô Mifune portrays Dr. Kyojio "Red Beard" Niide, a gruff but caring head doctor at a 19th-century clinic for the poor. Sorely in need of competent assistance, Red Beard takes on a new intern, the ambitious Noboru Yasumoto (Yuzo Kayama). However, Yasumoto isn't made aware of his appointment until after he's visited the facility and seen its grim conditions and impoverished patients. Initially, the brash young physician rebels against the wise elder and declines his duties, but gradually Yasumoto begins to respect Red Beard and his difficult yet essential work. As Yasumoto slowly acclimates to the clinic, the story also follows the lives (and deaths) of various patients. Truly the end of an era, RED BEARD marks the dissolution of the Kurosawa/Mifune partnership and also Kurosawa's last black-and-white production. Although surprisingly little has been written about the rift between Mifune and Kurosawa, it's likely that tensions were largely due to the film's grueling two-year shoot. Despite the drama behind the camera, RED BEARD remains one of Kurosawa's underrated classics. Although Mifune is best known for his earlier roles as an impetuous youth, here he gives a mature, though no less vital, performance, echoing the mentor character Takashi Shimura played in STRAY DOG, SEVEN SAMURAI, and other Kurosawa movies. (However, Mifune does get one action-packed, YOJIMBO-worthy fight scene.) In turn, Kayama admirably fills the role of the headstrong young intern. A sort of period-piece MASH or ER, RED BEARD is a moving drama that uses doctors and patients to address the timeless notion of trying to be a good person in an often cruel world.

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Hong Kong satirist Stephen Chow wrote, directed, and stars in this hilarious spoof of sports and kung fu movie cliches. Chow plays "Mighty Steel Leg" Sing, who can kick soda cans through walls, and is a natural soccer star in the eyes of crippled coach Fung (Patrick Se Yin), who is looking to challenge his arch rival Hung, the captain of the aptly named Evil Team. Recruiting Sing and his goofy brothers who all have names like Steel Head, Hook Kick Leg, and Weight Vest (with qualities to match), Hung's team soon rises through the ranks via their supernatural Kung Fu soccer skills. There's also a love interest in the form of a shy girl (Vicki Zhao Wei) who uses martial arts magic in making steamed bread. MATRIX-style digital effects elevate the actor's martial arts skills to ludicrous heights, giving the clichéd story such a giddy, high-octane boost it soars into a comic class by itself. Soccer balls ripple through the air like slo-mo bullets, smashing through walls, and flying thousands of feet in the air. A box office smash in the East, SHAOLIN SOCCER should prove irresistible to open-minded Westerners looking for a laugh-out-loud experience.

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A legendary production plagued by problems almost from the outset, the making of QUE VIVA MEXICO cured Sergei Eisenstein of the desire ever to work in North America again. On the verge of leaving Hollywood in disgust in 1930, Eisenstein accepted financing from a group of investors, led by writer Upton Sinclair, to make an ambitious film on Mexican culture. When the director ran out of money before shooting was completed, Sinclair shut down production and seized the extant footage. More than 40 years later, the film was turned over to Eisenstein's assistant, Grigori Alexandrov, and he edited what remained according to the director's notes. The film consists of three vignettes: Sandunga, Manguei, and Fiesta. The first explores the precolonial world of the Incas, observing ancient architecture and detailing pagan religious practices and langorous mating rituals. In the second, a murderer is punished for his crime in an unusually graphic and barbaric manner. The third features a brilliantly photographed bullfight. There was to be a fourth episode, Soldadera, dealing with the 1910 revolution. Although it was never shot, Alexandrov describes Eisentein's intentions with the aid of still photos and sketches. Despite its fragmentary nature, this unique document, permeated by images of eroticism and death, contains what is likely the most breathtaking photography of Mexico on celluloid.