About this product: This 60 minute DVD by Sweden's Hypocrisy features 11 tracks from their performance at Germany's 1998 Wacken Open Air Festival, also 6 music videos, spanning their entire career up to "The Final Chapter."
About this product: A film festival favorite, THE BROOKLYN CONNECTION takes a gripping look at the world of "gun running" through the story of Florin Krasniqi and the guerrilla army he built by transporting weapons from the United States to Kosovo. The owner of a successful roofing company in Brooklyn, NY, Krasniqi was focused on the immigrant dream and making a successful life for his family in America. Everything changes, however, when his cousin, Adrian, is killed in an attack on the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. And as the conflict between Kosovo’s Albanian majority and its Serbian rulers descends further into war, terrorism and ethnic cleansing, Krasniqi decides to take matters into his own hands. THE BROOKLYN CONNECTION reveals how this sta8unch Kosovar nationalist raised over $30 million to arm and supply the upstart Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), acquired weapons and uniforms, and smuggled them into Kosovo via Albania. Dedicating himself to bringing about the Kosovo Albanians’ long-frustrated dream of self-determination, the film explores how Krasniqi used America’s civil liberties--especially liberal gun laws--to attain his goal. Based on Stacy Sullivan’s book Be Not Afraid, For You Have Sons in America, THE BROOKLYN CONNECTION is a remarkable behind-the-scenes examination of global politics, U.S. gun laws, and recent Balkan turmoil. DVD Features: Deleted Scenes; Florin Krasniqi Update; Filmmaker Interview; Filmmaker Biography; Interactive Menus; Scene Selection
About this product: First performed in 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s sophisticated comedy of manners satirizes the extravagance and corruption of London society. The School for Scandal’s combination of elegant language and earthy comedy weaves a deliciously nasty tale of intrigue, slander, and clandestine love affairs. Blair Brown stars in this timeless, witty look at the wages of scandal mongering and social climbing, scheming and hypocrisy. Stars Emmy®-nominees Blair Brown ("The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd") and Kenneth Welsh ("Twin Peaks") and Emmy®-winner Larry Gates (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof).
About this product: When Mark--a young gay man addicted to sex and drugs--hits bottom, his concerned brother checks him into a Christian retreat in the New Mexico desert. Run by a compassionate husband and wife team, Gayle and Ted have made it their life's mission to cure young men of their 'gay affliction' through spiritual guidance. At first, Mark resists, but soon takes the message to heart. As Mark's fellowship with his fellow Ex-Gays grow stronger, however, he finds himself powerfully drawn to Scott, another young man battling family demons of his own. As their friendship begins to develop into romance, Mark and Scott are forced to confront their true selves.
Featuring powerful performances and even-handed direction, this acclaimed drama is a subtly nuanced and deeply sympathetic look at both sides of one of the most polarizing debates in America: the conflict and possible reconciliation between homosexuality and Christianity.
About this product: Eric Bogosian shines in his freshly-brewed Wake Up and Smell the Coffee. A profoundly insightful and wickedly provocative performer, Obie Award winner Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio) has never shied away from the disturbing truths in life. Frequently compared to comedic social commentators Lenny Bruce and Spalding Gray, Bogosian keeps his finger on the pulse of our collective fears while satirizing contemporary American values. Based upon his critically acclaimed stage show, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee is Bogosian at his funniest, smartest, and angriest. Taking us for a ferocious ride through a cavalcade of colorful characters in his mind, Bogosian skewers pop culture, conformity, religious hypocrisy and human nature itself with a razor-sharp wit. Whether he’s playing Satan as a modern-day salesman, a Hollywood producer capitalizing on an airplane disaster, a spiritual guru with questionable motives, or mocking himself as an obsequious actor auditioning for a part, Bogosian tackles today’s relevant, post-9/11 themes with uncompromising honesty.
About this product: The hypocrisy of the U.S. government is powerfully scrutinized in Distorted Morality, a scathing thesis presented by renowned scholar Noam Chomsky. Speaking before an intimate audience at Harvard University on February 6, 2002, Chomsky sets fair and logical parameters to his thesis (namely, we are all hypocrites and, for the purposes of debate, the U.S. government should always be given benefit of the doubt) before outlining, with academic precision and citation of real history (as opposed to biased written history), the reasons why America's post-9/11 war on terror is a logical impossibility.
This, according to Chomsky's carefully supported analysis, is because the U.S. government has been, and continues to be, a major supporter of state-supported terrorism, favoring retaliatory or preemptive aggression over mediation in the world court, and avoiding accountability by excluding itself from the globally accepted definition of terrorism. (To underscore his point, Chomsky repeatedly volunteers his sources, inviting scrutiny at every turn.) With an additional hour-long Q&A session (in some ways more compelling, since it offers Chomsky's response to opposing viewpoints), Distorted Morality deserves the widest possible audience. In the short period between Chomsky's Harvard speech and the start of America's war against Iraq in March 2003, Chomsky's thesis has attained the chilling status of prophesy. Inevitably, Chomsky will be labeled anti-American, but at least his morality is crystal clear, immune to the obfuscation of politics and mainstream news. --Jeff Shannon
About this product: Common sense and comedy make excellent bedfellows in Victory Begins at Home, comedian Bill Maher's scathing one-hour show taped on Broadway and first broadcast on HBO in July 2003. "Comedian" seems hardly adequate in defining Maher, who functions as political analyst, voice of conscience, court jester, social critic, and tireless advocate of decency, honesty, and, yes, even patriotism (unless you're a staunch conservative, in which case Maher's an insufferable moron, but that's your problem, not his). Indeed, Victory will ultimately serve as a time-capsule summary of political, personal, and religious absurdity in the age of George W. Bush, Middle East turmoil, and rampant terrorism, and after honing his edge on TV's late, great Politically Incorrect, who better than Maher to comment on the madness? Take this, for example: "The true axis of evil in America is the genius of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people." Which is to say, Maher's a fearless equal-opportunity offender, and nobody gets off the hook easily. Whether he's excoriating the hypocrisy of politicians and priests, illegal vs. prescription drugs, our "feminized" society, or the good reason you should never buy diamonds, Maher's is a voice of angry, caring reason, and we're better off with him (and his profanely provocative freedom of speech) than without him. --Jeff Shannon
About this product: George Eliot's accomplished but underrated last novel is effectively, often stirringly, adapted for this 2002 BBC production, which was scripted by old pro Andrew Davies (Middlemarch) and directed with wit and subtlety by Tom Hooper (Cold Feet). Set in the 1870s, Eliot's story concerns two strong-willed young people whose self-determination is under attack by legal constraints on their rights to an inheritance. The noble Daniel (Hugh Dancy) is of dubious birth; the fiery Gwendolen (Romola Garai) can't possess her late father's estate because she's a woman. They are sympathetic to one another, but not lovers: Gwendolen is obliged to marry into wealth and becomes an unhappy bride of the scoundrel Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville), while Daniel must sort out his feelings about the much-maligned "Jewess," the beautiful Mirah. Despite Garai's somewhat questionable casting, this lengthy drama--evenly divided between the two leads--never lags in insight or passion. --Tom Keogh
About this product: What's a single woman with beauty and property to do in the medieval world? The mercenary attentions of the single village men send the grieving young widow Mistress Pearle (Kitty Aldridge) fleeing town, and her return a year later rekindles the competition with a vengeance. Call on Brother Cadfael (Derek Jacobi), the spiritual Sherlock Holmes of the Dark Ages, when the young monk tending her rose garden is found dead and the widow herself disappears a day later. Cadfael suspects the brooding bronzesmith (the gruff Tom Mannion) who rents her cottage, but he's not the only man in town with secrets. Jacobi is a delight as the medieval humanist, and he's matched by the worldly Sister Magdalen (Sarah Badel, reprising her role from "The Leper of St. Giles"). Their flirtatious scenes remind us they both led vivid lives before taking the vows.
The DVD features a few minutes of audio comments by Derek Jacobi, who ruminates on the role; a gallery of production stills; brief filmographies on the featured cast; and a biography and booklist for author Ellis Peters. --Sean Axmaker
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