About this product: Primer won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and has drawn repeat viewers eager to crack writer-director-star Shane Carruth's puzzler of a time-travel drama. Carruth, an engineer by training, plays inventor Aaron, whose entrepreneurial partnership with fellow brainiac Abe (David Sullivan) unexpectedly results in a process for traveling back several hours in time. The men initially use these rewind sessions to succeed in the stock market. But a dark consequence of their daily journeys eventually complicates matters. If this sounds like a very commercial, science fiction thriller, Primer is anything but that. Shot on 16mm for $7,000, the film has a tantalizing, sealed-in logic, akin to Memento, that forces viewers to see the fantastic with a certain dispassion. One may be tempted to sit through Primer again to more fully understand its paradoxes and ethical quandaries. --Tom Keogh
About this product: Creepy intimacy, plenty of suspense, and a few surprises enliven this black-and-white treat from the director of Memento. Bill is a struggling writer who fills his time and mind by following random strangers he sees on the street. After breaking his own rule ("never follow the same person twice") he becomes fascinated by Cobb, a voyeur who takes things one step further--actually breaking into people's homes to sift through their things. As you might expect, the relationship soon becomes unhealthy. Writer-director Christopher Nolan already reveals a sure hand in this early neo-noir work. Like Memento, Following toys with timelines, jumping back and forth and carefully dropping bits of information exactly when they're needed. Short and sharp, Following features an intriguing plot line and fine, understated performances by the entire cast. Don't miss it. --Ali Davis
About this product: Patterns exist everywhere: in nature, in science, in religion, in business. Max Cohen (played hauntingly by Sean Gullette) is a mathematician searching for these patterns in everything. Yet, he's not the only one, and everyone from Wall Street investors, looking to break the market, to Hasidic Jews, searching for the 216-digit number that reveals the true name of God, are trying to get their hands on Max. This dark, low-budget film was shot in black and white by director Darren Aronofsky. With eerie music, voice-overs, and overt symbolism enhancing the somber mood, Aronofsky has created a disturbing look at the world. Max is deeply paranoid, holed up in his apartment with his computer Euclid, obsessively studying chaos theory. Blinding headaches and hallucinogenic visions only feed his paranoia as he attempts to remain aloof from the world, venturing out only to meet his mentor, Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), who for some mysterious reason feels Max should take a break from his research. This movie is complex--occasionally too complex--but the psychological drama and the loose sci-fi elements make this a worthwhile, albeit consuming, watch. Pi won the Director's Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. --Jenny Brown
About this product: High school collides with hard-boiled film noir in the twisty, cunning Brick. When he gets a mysterious message from his ex-girlfriend, a high school loner named Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin) starts to dig into a crisscrossed web of drugs and duplicity, eventually getting entwined in the criminal doings of a teenage crime lord known as the Pin (Lukas Haas), his thuggish henchman Tugger (Noah Fleiss, Joe the King), and a mysterious girl named Laura (Nora Zehetner, Fifty Pills). Brick has not only the seductive, labyrinthine plot of a crime thriller by Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) or Raymond Chandler (Farewell, My Lovely) but also a dense high-school version of hard-boiled lingo that's both comic and poetic. The movie unfolds with headlong momentum as Brendan manipulates, fights, and staggers his way through layers of high-school society. Gordon-Levitt is excellent; between this and the equally compelling Mysterious Skin, he's left his 3rd Rock from the Sun days behind. Also featuring Meagan Good (Waist Deep) and Richard Roundtree (Shaft). --Bret Fetzer
About this product: If Clive Barker had written an episode of The Twilight Zone, it might have looked something like Cube. A handful of strangers wake up inside a bizarre maze, having been spirited there during the night. They quickly learn that they have to navigate their way through a series of chambers if they have any hope of escape, but the problem is that there are lethal traps awaiting if they choose their route unwisely. Having established some imaginative and grisly punishments in store for the hostages, cowriter and director Vincenzo Natali turns his attention to the characters, for whom being trapped amplifies their best and worst qualities. The film is, in fact, similar to a famous episode of Rod Serling's old television series, though Natali's explanation for why these poor people are being put through hell is a lot closer to the spirit of The X-Files. Cube has some solid moments of suspense and drama, and the sets are appropriately striking: one is tempted to believe at first the characters are lost inside a computer chip. --Tom Keogh
About this product: Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) and Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix) shine in this absolute stunner of a movie. Memento combines a bold, mind-bending script with compelling action and virtuoso performances. Pearce plays Leonard Shelby, hunting down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The problem is that "the incident" that robbed Leonard of his wife also stole his ability to make new memories. Unable to retain a location, a face, or a new clue on his own, Leonard continues his search with the help of notes, Polaroids, and even homemade tattoos for vital information.
Because of his condition, Leonard essentially lives his life in short, present-tense segments, with no clear idea of what's just happened to him. That's where Memento gets really interesting; the story begins at the end, and the movie jumps backward in 10-minute segments. The suspense of the movie lies not in discovering what happens, but in finding out why it happened. Amazingly, the movie achieves edge-of-your-seat excitement even as it moves backward in time, and it keeps the mind hopping as cause and effect are pieced together.
Pearce captures Leonard perfectly, conveying both the tragic romance of his quest and his wry humor in dealing with his condition. He is bolstered by several excellent supporting players, and the movie is all but stolen from him by Pantoliano, who delivers an amazing performance as Teddy, the guy who may or may not be on his side. Memento has an intriguing structure and even meditations on the nature of perception and meaning of life if you go looking for them, but it also functions just as well as a completely absorbing thriller. It's rare to find a movie this exciting with so much intelligence behind it. --Ali Davis
About this product: 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
About this product: The strangest things can happen during a summer holiday. For ordinary, middle-aged Spaniard Héctor (Karra Elejalde), time bends in on itself. He and his wife, Clara (Candela Fernández), are enjoying the tranquility of their country home when Héctor notices a nude woman in the woods (Bárbara Goenaga). While investigating the situation, a man with a bandaged face stabs his arm with a pair of scissors, and then disappears. In a nearby lab, Héctor meets a technician (writer/director Nacho Vigalondo), who helps him to hide out in a strange hatch. Moments later, Héctor emerges to find he can see his house, his wife, and himself from the top of the hill. The scientist explains that he's observing his "mirror image" from the previous day. After leaving the lab, Héctor runs into the woman from the woods, and the mysterious events from the day before begin to snap into focus, and he realizes he can only set things right by repeating everything that has already happened. The Oscar-nominated Vigalondo's first feature has elicited comparisons to time-travel movies from Back to the Future to Groundhog Day, but in its reliance on clever plotting over special effects, his thriller has more in common with the low-budget Primer. At the time of its release, United Artists announced that David Cronenberg would be handling the English-language remake, which is sure to offer up its own unique twists and turns. Like Christopher Nolan’s Memento, this jigsaw-puzzle picture calls for multiple viewings to make all the pieces fit. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
About this product: Subtitled "What the Tab Won't Tell You," this DVD and its accompanying 23-page transcription book are designed for the guitar player who already has some knowledge of guitar chords, rhythm, and perhaps even lead styles outside of the flatpicking realm (fingerstyle, classical, blues, rock, etc.). If you already know how to play the guitar, but are not familiar with the flatpicking style and repertoire, then this DVD is for you! In this DVD Orrin Star teaches you the fundamentals of flatpicking in great detail focusing specifically on the technique and articulation. Orrin s masterful presentation of right-hand technique will help you overcome the common hurdles that many who are new to flatpicking tend to encounter. He also emphasizes the special characteristics of the flatpicking technique and style to include how to develop the "fiddle tune" feel and groove. Orrin's presentation on left-hand technique will also help you smooth out your playing by "squeezing the juice" out of every note. Orrin teaches all technical details in the context of learning songs from the flatpicking repertoire. The songs included on this DVD and tab book are: Old Joe Clark (4 arrangements), Whiskey Before Breakfast, I Saw the Light, House of the Rising Sun, Don't Let Your Deal Go Down, Soldier's Joy, Red Haired Boy (2 arrangements), and Cherokee Shuffle. Each of these song arrangements is designed to teach you specific technical skills related to the art of flatpicking (such as crosspicking, floating, Carter Style, Blake Style, integrating strums into lead playing, accenting notes to emulate a vocalists phrasing, etc.). This DVD is not just a repertoire builder. As Orrin states in the DVD's introduction, his goal is to "teach you how to fish" not simply "catch fish for you."
About this product: The author of the bestselling reference book A Blacksmithing Primer appears in these videos, teaching the standard techniques that all blacksmiths must know to master the craft. This is a 3 dvd set with almost 6 hours of learning! You won't find a better resource for the beginning and intermediate blacksmith. You will learn how to organize your shop, build your first fire, hold and use your hammer, choose your stock, make tools for any job, forge weld, make scrolls, hinges, how to make animal and human heads and much, much more.
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