Tropic of Cancer
by Henry Miller
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 June, 1987)
list price: $11.95 -- our price: $8.96
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Editorial Review

No punches are pulled in Henry Miller's most famous work. Still pretty rough going for even our jaded sensibilities, but Tropic of Cancer is an unforgettable novel of self-confession. Maybe the most honest book ever written, this autobiographical fiction about Miller's life as an expatriate American in Paris was deemed obscene and banned from publication in this country for years. When you read this, you see immediately how much modern writers owe Miller. ... Read more

Reviews (130)

A Total Experience

TROPIC OF CANCER is crude, euphoric, base, philosophical, ecstatic, and immorally moral. It is written as the man lived his life. Henry Miller expresses life and people with a sharp eye and a sharper pen. He writes philosophy with the brilliance of a master making many of those praised men seem foolish and does it all with the language of a common man. Miller is not lofty. Miller is far from unknowable. He writes himself as a vagabond pop philosopher and violent lover. No other author can express such clarity of passion in his every word. Some may fault him for his jerky, somewhat erratic style of prose and the lack of flow throughout his writings. I have heard these comments before. But, Mr. Miller's works are not novels. They are not works of memoir/fiction. Often brutal and episodic as life is. The writing is real, heartfelt, lonesome, and desperate -- it cries from the gut of life. Henry Miller is a man who cannot contain his PASSION for life! I recommend it highly. Try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "THE LOSERS CLUB: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, funny, entertaining novel I can't stop thinking about.

Sublime Art.
I'm still not certain as to where Henry Miller rates among American authors, but I have to say that I just read Tropic... for the second time and enjoyed it almost as much as the first.

As a word of warning to prospective readers, the first 50 pages is rather uneven and not reflective of the grandeur you'll find in the following 250.Don't put it down as you will be immeasurably rewarded.

Tropic of Cancer is an unprecedented blend of beauty, poetry, art, metaphor, and plot.Believe it or not, Miller may be at his strongest when he relays to the reader the astounding specifics of his squalid and lascivious existence in a Bohemian Paris that is gone forever.It'll make you want to buy a DeLorean, hire a mad professor, and travel back in time to a locale where there was no shame in pleasure and no shame in compulsively pursuing it.So much of the description is wonderously decorative and memorable.The city of Paris should erect monuments to Miller for the way in which he preserved an era for posterity.For some reason in Tropic... unlike in a book like "Kafka was All the Rage", the perpetual use of metaphor works and does not annoy the reader.Perhaps it is due to Miller's originality and flair for conversational description.He is a listener and the author describes the human voice perfectly.Miller is strongest when telling a story creatively as opposed to philosophizing.In Tropic... there is just enough story and characterization to make the work a resounding success.It's not a book for the timid, however.

History into context.
It seems to me, after reading the reviews of Tropic of Cancer, a lot of pretentious people who think they know absolutely everything, have said it was a bad piece of work. This makes me think they havent put the time era into context, or that they think, this having sexual references, it's like porn. I hope they realize, that their parents have had sex, and that things like this should be nothing new. Henry Miller is such an amazing and beautiful writer, because he did this when this sort of thing would have caused havoc. It's also the truth. You cant exactly say his writing is so erotic and sex based, when this sort of thing actually happened in 1930 France. It's like denying the Holocaust in history books, just because you dont like what happened.
Whether you like his writing or not, it was a big step in literature, and it's a good thing people who judge it as bad dont write our classic books, because there would be no diversity whatsoever, let alone non-fiction at all... ... Read more

Isbn: 0802131786
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General   

To the White Sea (Delta World War II Library)
by JAMES DICKEY
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (01 September, 1994)
list price: $11.95 -- our price: $9.56
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Reviews (19)

Escape through death
The basic story is that of a WWII bomber crewman shot down over Tokyo immediately prior to the great firebomb raids at the end of the war. He is alone in enemy territory. We follow our tail-gunner as he plans to escape Tokyo during the confusion of the upcoming firebomb raid the following night. We watch him as he struggles to stay alive with his only goal to keep moving north. To the ice regions like his home in Alaska, where he feels he will be safe. We are given many glimpses into the thoughts of our crewman as he tries to survive. The ending of the book we have our main charcter sort of at home with his surroundings and he seems to accept his fate at the end. I did find this a bit of a slow read. And therefore rated it 3 instead of 4 stars.

Not bad, but not a page-turner either.
I'm about half way through this novel, and while the main character and the situation he finds himself in are intriguing, I'm a bit disappointed by how slow the story moves. Being inside the protagonist's head shouldn't mean we need to follow every fleeting and repetitive thought that goes through it, does it? I have no doubt I'll finish this book and be satisfied with it in the end, but it won't be without a fair amount of effort. Call me a philistine, but I want a book to draw me in, not challenge me to stay engaged.

Great in print and on tape
I've been listening to the book on tape after having read it several years ago.It is brilliant either way.I'll keep this review short.Dickey's use of language is phenomenal. The recurring themes of camoflage and eyes are chilling.This book does an exceptional job of capturing a man's descent into paranoid schizophrenia, all in the first person perspective.He is not a serial killing in the way that term is usually applied.The main character begins the book as a tightly wound, somewhat paranoid character, but as the plot unfolds and he has no structure or familiar reality to ground him, he begins to decompensate. The book is harsh and disturbing ... and utterly brilliant and compelling. ... Read more

Isbn: 0385313098
Sales Rank: 204149
Subjects:  1. Action & Adventure    2. Fiction    3. Fiction - Men'sAdventure    4. War & Military    5. World War, 1939-1945    6. Fiction / General   

Invisible Monsters
by Chuck Palahniuk
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (September, 1999)
list price: $13.95 -- our price: $10.46
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Editorial Review

When the plot of yourfirst novel partially hinges on anarchist overthrows funded by soap sales, and the narrative hook of your second work is the black box recorder of a jet moments away from slamming into the Australian outback, it stands to reason that your audience is going to be ready for anything. Which, to an author like Chuck Palahniuk, must sound like a challenge. Palahniuk's third identity crisis (that's "novel" to you), Invisible Monsters, more than ably responds to this call to arms. Set once again in an all-too-familiar modern wasteland where social disease and self-hatred can do more damage than any potboiler-fiction bad guy, the tale focuses particularly on a group of drag queens and fashion models trekking cross-country to find themselves, looking everywhere from the bottom of a vial of Demerol to the end of a shotgun barrel. It's a sort of Drugstore Cowboy-meets-Yentl affair, or a Hope-Crosby road movie with a skin graft and hormone-pill obsession, if you know what I mean.

Um, yeah. Anyway, the Hollywood vibe doesn't stop these comparisons. As with Fight Club and Survivor, the book is invested with a cinematic sweep, from the opening set piece, which takes off like a house afire (literally), to a host of filmic tics sprayed throughout the text: "Flash," "Jump back," "Jump way ahead," "Flash," "Flash," "Flash." You get the idea. It's as if Palahniuk didn't write the thing but yanked it directly out of the Cineplex of his mind's eye. Does it succeed? Mostly. Still working on measuring out the proper dosages of his many writerly talents (equal parts potent imagery, nihilistic coolspeak, and doped-out craziness), Palahniuk every now and then loosens his grip on the story line, which at points becomes as hard to decipher as your local pill addict's medicine cabinet. However Invisible Monsters works best on a roller-coaster level. You don't stop and count each slot on the track as you're going down the big hill. You throw up your hands and yell, "Whee!" --Bob Michaels ... Read more

Reviews (230)

probably the worst book by a good author
boring, waste of time book by a good author.

Funny and Original!
Invisible Monsters is the story of a famous fashion model, horribly disfigured by the slug of a rifle. The events before, during, and after the shooting unravel, jumping back and forth, until finally the whole story is laid out before you. In a style that will be familiar to those who have read other books by Palahniuk, the story starts near the climax of the action. After that, everything jumps around, narrated by the main character, in a stream of memories type style.

Even giving away a big portion of the climax of the story, I found that Palahniuk kept me guessing. Nobody is quite who they seem to be in this novel. Everybody has an interesting past, and most of these pasts end up woven together in one messy, dysfunctional, disturbing fabric by the end of the book.

Along the way, Palahniuk drops lots of interesting facts that you aren't really sure if you want to know. Do you take or know anybody who takes the hormone drug Premarin? Palahniuk will key you in on the way that particular drug is made. Have you ever pondered what a difference letter placement makes in the meaning of a word? The author's discussion of the meaning of the words feltching and fletching might get you thinking about this subject.

I found it particularly interesting that the main character, and narrator, of this story is female. Often, male authors don't seem to do a very good job of writing from a female's perspective. I think that Palahniuk did a good job here. I would appreciate comments from females who have read this book about this assertion, whether you agree or disagree. But in the end, I think a lot of the gender thing disappears, as the main character becomes just a very troubled human being.

This book raises a lot of questions. It gets you thinking. You will probably learn some facts that wouldn't be appropriate to share in polite company. You may reconsider your own boring, quiet, comfortable existence. Is this an existence, or just an opiate dream of the masses to dull the pain until we die? This is a good book to read if you are bored with television and cookie-cutter novels who recycle the same plot lines and paper-thin characters, again and again. So pick up a copy of Invisible Monsters! Another book I strongly recommend is one I picked up off Amazon last month: The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez, another unconventional, funny, thought-provoking novel.

Funny and Original!

Invisible Monsters is the story of a famous fashion model, horribly disfigured by the slug of a rifle. The events before, during, and after the shooting unravel, jumping back and forth, until finally the whole story is laid out before you. In a style that will be familiar to those who have read other books by Palahniuk, the story starts near the climax of the action. After that, everything jumps around, narrated by the main character, in a stream of memories type style.

Even giving away a big portion of the climax of the story, I found that Palahniuk kept me guessing. Nobody is quite who they seem to be in this novel. Everybody has an interesting past, and most of these pasts end up woven together in one messy, dysfunctional, disturbing fabric by the end of the book.

Along the way, Palahniuk drops lots of interesting facts that you aren't really sure if you want to know. Do you take or know anybody who takes the hormone drug Premarin? Palahniuk will key you in on the way that particular drug is made. Have you ever pondered what a difference letter placement makes in the meaning of a word? The author's discussion of the meaning of the words feltching and fletching might get you thinking about this subject.

I found it particularly interesting that the main character, and narrator, of this story is female. Often, male authors don't seem to do a very good job of writing from a female's perspective. I think that Palahniuk did a good job here. I would appreciate comments from females who have read this book about this assertion, whether you agree or disagree. But in the end, I think a lot of the gender thing disappears, as the main character becomes just a very troubled human being.

This book raises a lot of questions. It gets you thinking. You will probably learn some facts that wouldn't be appropriate to share in polite company. You may reconsider your own boring, quiet, comfortable existence. Is this an existence, or just an opiate dream of the masses to dull the pain until we die? This is a good book to read if you are bored with television and cookie-cutter novels who recycle the same plot lines and paper-thin characters, again and again. So pick up a copy of Invisible Monsters! Another book I strongly recommend is one I picked up off Amazon last month: The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition by Richard Perez, another unconventional, funny, thought-provoking novel.

... Read more

Isbn: 0393319296
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Popular American Fiction   

Glamorama (Vintage Contemporaries)
by BRET EASTON ELLIS
Average Customer Review:
Paperback (21 March, 2000)
list price: $14.95 -- our price: $10.47
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Editorial Review

Glamorama is a satirical mass-murder opus more ambitious than Bret Easton Ellis's 1990 AmericanPsycho. It starts as a spritz-of-consciousness romp about kid-club entrepreneur Victor Ward, "the It boy of the moment," an actor-model up for Flatliners II. Ellis has perfect pitch for glam-speak, and he gives nightlife the fizz, pace, and shimmer it lacks in drab reality. Anyone could cite the right celeb names and tunes, but like a rock-polishing machine, his prose gives literary sheen to fame-chasing air-kissers. He's coldly funny: when Victor's girl tries to argue him out of a breakup, she angrily snorts six bumps of coke, stops, mutters, "Wrong vial," snorts four corrective doses from whatever she has in her other fist, then objects to a rival at the party wearing the same dress she's wearing.

You had to be there; Ellis makes you feel you are. But such satire is a very smart bomb targeting a very large barn. Models' status anxiety doesn't merit Ellis's Tom Wolfe-esque expertise. Glamorama gets better when Victor gets drafted into a mysterious group of model-terrorists who bomb 747s and the Ritz in Paris, wearing Kevlar-lined Armani suits. Oh, they still behave like shallow snobs, pronouncing "cool" as if it had 12 o's. But now when somebody swills Cristal, it's apt to be poisoned, to horrific effect, which Ellis expertly, affectlessly describes. His enfant-terrible debut, Less Than Zero,aped Joan Didion.Now Ellis has grown into a lesser Don DeLillo--and that's high praise. --Tim Appelo ... Read more

Reviews (297)

Don't bother
Everytime I listen to KMFDM's "Megalomaniac", I am reminded of the 2nd half of this book. The lyrics seem to fit in nicely with the nihilism and pointlessness of this pile of rubbage.

I will say that Victor is a "protagonist" that you can actually feel a shred of sympathy for, which instantly puts him a notch above Patrick Bateman.

However, that's not to say that Victor isn't a self absorbed, vain, sociopathic scum bag that you could care less about. In fact, you could care less about him, just not much less.

Typical Ellis nonsense that is tough to ignore, but has little to no shock value. If you've read one Ellis book, you know what you are getting into from the onset, and there really aren't many surprises in store for you.

Do Not Read This Book
...Unless you've already read one of Bret Easton Ellis' great novels (Less than Zero, Rules of Attraction, or (for the unsqueamish) American Pyscho).No matter how much anyone tries to defend the worth of this 500+ page monster, there is no doubt: Glamorama is the worst book Ellis has yet written.Victor Ward is less interesting than any other "protagonist" that Ellis has dealt with, and he's even less likable and sympathetic than Patrick Bateman (which is a very bold statement).What went wrong?Ellis is clearly concerned with the alienation and isolation of modern culture.Fine.But four novels into his career, you'd think he'd have developed an alternative formula to the whole "hey look, I'm cool and fashionable and I do do drugs.Oh wait, this isn't enough to make me happy" deal.American Psycho is Ellis' best novel, because we see Bateman furiously struggling to create a reality outside of the un-real facade of his real life (if that even makes sense).He questions the reality of his life by engaing in a psychotic rampage.If I kill these people, do they become real?

Glamorama is concerned with the same issues, but this time Ellis seems wrapped up in the celebrity culture that he has become a part of.Unlike his previous efforts, however, he has not managed to come up with any valuable insights about our opressive consumer culture.Maybe Modern America wouldn't be so souless if our writers devoted themselves to depicting something BEYOND the plastic world they live in.Isn't writing a matter of the imagination-- the author creates that which s/he (and the reader) cannot experience in the real world.We see Ellis struggling to do this in one sense (Ward's kidnapping, terrorist activities in the 2nd half of the book--- I don't want to give anything away), but it just doesn't amount to enough.

I suppose Ellis isn't writing much different than what he did with his first two novels (although here he is unnecessarily long-winded).He wrote Less Than Zero in college, though... now, almost 20 years later, he seems to be stuck in the same rut.Perhaps I'm expecting too much of him.For his next novel, instead of a "return to form," I would like to see an evolution of his talents.I guess I'll have to wait...

Worth Your Time!

Few contemporary authors (with the possible exception of Poppy Z. Brite) can inspire such a knee jerk, love/hate reaction with their work as Bret Easton Ellis. The writer who was both vilified and praised for his last novel, American Psycho, returns after a several year hiatus with his newest offering, Glamorama.

Glamorama is more of Ellis doing what he does best. Writing hip, disaffected, vapid rich kid characters who live a life most of us only dream of. But, don't be fooled; there's more going on here than a lament on what it's like to be young, rich, and apathetic. That's part of the allure of his work...there's always more going on just beneath the surface.

This book is sort of the literary equivalent of From Dusk Till Dawn. Like that film, this story starts out one way, then takes a big twist in the middle and becomes something else. In Glamorama, we follow the exploits of Victor Ward, a twenty-something New York model who's working his way up to being an A-list celebrity. Victor spends his days in NYC preparing to open a new nightclub, deciding who's cool and who's not, fretting about his abs, screwing his boss's fiancée, and waiting to snag a role in Flatliners 2.

As the events in New York come to a head, the plot abruptly shifts. Victor leaves New York and sets sail for London aboard the QE2 at the insistence of a man named Palakon. He's being paid $300,000 to find Jamie Fields, a former classmate from Camden, and bring her back to the States. From this point on, things become very surreal. Victor meets a woman on the ship, who mysteriously disappears. He reaches England and finds Jamie living with several other famous models, including Bobby Hughes. Little does he know, they're terrorists.

Victor then spends the second half of the novel trying to unravel the web of lies he's become entangled in. Part of the fun is that he's so clueless he's not equipped to deal with the situation. Unable to come to terms with reality, he imagines that everything that happens to him is part of some film. He interacts with an assistant director, he does things according to what the "script" calls for, and he plays his part in the unfolding drama willingly.

The tension builds near the climax with this most unlikely hero having to try and thwart the terrorists while escaping with his own life.

Glamorama features some violent segments not for the weak of stomach including a plane explosion written in such harrowing detail that I will board my next flight with a great deal more trepidation than normal. And while the violence isn't as extreme as American Psycho, I found it more disturbing because of the inherent realism behind it. The Bateman murders were gleefully over the top...the terrorist attacks in this book come across as much more believable and much more frightening because of it.

With this book, Ellis takes a step back from American Psycho, using the life of Victor Ward and the landscape of New York City to show a world that is perhaps capable of producing someone like Patrick Bateman. In Victor's world, just like Patrick's, people are interchangeable and only worth knowing if they're more rich or famous than you.

All in all, Glamorama's an interesting dichotomy. On one hand, it's perhaps Ellis' most accessible novel to date. On the other, the surreal nature of Victor's reality makes it a book that begs for a re-read upon completion just to put all the pieces together. Still, it's a novel that rips along, full of Ellis' stylish prose and deft characterizations. And because of that, I give it my highest recommendation. Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Ellis, but very much on my mind since I purchased it "used" off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.
... Read more

Isbn: 0375703845
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Literary    5. Fiction / General   

For Collectors Only: Zappa Tribute
Average Customer Review:
Audio CD (07 January, 2003)
list price: $10.49 -- our price: $10.49
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Features

• Import

Reviews (1)

Not Really For Collectors Only
This is just an outright blatant attempt to exploit the grief of true Zappa fans as they search for new and unreleased material from the master himself.This piece of work is not a part of the original �Project-Object�!There is nothing new or unreleased here!As a matter of fact if you already own a copy of �Rare Meat: Early Works of Frank Zappa� or �Cucamonga� (both on the Del Fi label) or �Cucamonga Years� [IMPORT] (on the Phantom label) then you already have this CD.As a matter of fact the tracks order and song lengths are identical.So true collectors, save you $$$ for CD-R's to copy live shows as that's truly the only place you're going to find "New and Unreleased" Zappa material.ZFT, don't get me started! ... Read more

Asin: B00007KFRM
Sales Rank: 194056
Subjects:  1. Pop    2. Rock   

Fulton Corporation TW36WB36" Long Wrecker Pry Bar
Average Customer Review:
Tools & Hardware
list price: $40.80 -- our price: $33.24
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Features

• Double claw for shingles
• A high performance tool for serious do-it-yourselfers, contractors, and professionals
• Unique rocker head for more power without blocking
• Wrecks fencing with greater leverage
• Prys up flooring by pushing and pulling with equal force

Reviews (1)

Pulled out hardedened cut nails!
I had 18 Hardened Masonry Cut Nails 16D, which were holding a 2x4" framing onto my garage's concrete floor. The nail holes into the concrete were predrilled, then the nails were hammered to a depth of 3/4" to 1" into the concrete. The framing was the foundation for a 3/4" plywood, emergency, hurricane garage enclosure (I live in Florida), that went through three hurricanes in 2004. Now I had to remove it, and wanted to save the framing intact. HOWEVER, I HAD NOT BEEN ABLE TO EXTRACT THE HARDENED CUT NAILS.

I used a Stanley 36" FatMax Wrecking Bar on one nail, and the first nail chewed up the edge of the claw, and the bar didn't even budge the nail. Apparently, the FatMax is not hardened/forged/alloy to handle hardened masonry cut nails. I had hammers that had also dented. However, I had a 30 year old all steel Estwing hammer that did not dent, so, I thought I had hope for a nail puller that would not break.

I wrote to Estwing, asking them for a recommendation for a bar of their manufacture that could do the job, and they replied as follows:
"Estwing has nothing that would give different results in terms of hardness to remove your cement nails. The Rockwell hardness readings on the cement nails are greater than anything we have to deal with them. We would think you need to cut the nails out with a carbide saw, etc. or approach the problem from a different way. I am sorry we could not be more help to you."

I contacted Fulton Corporation, the manufacturer of Fulton TW36WB 36" Long Wrecker Pry Bar, with the same question, and they responded more positively, as follows:
"I don't know what will happen, for certain, if you try to pull out your nails with our Wrecker Bar. I will tell you this, however. The only claim we have ever denied was in the case of a user who admitted the bar broke when he put a 10" long "persuader pipe" on the end of it and tried to move an extremely heavy object. If you buy one of our 48" Wrecker bars and use it for your nails, without additional "persuasion" attachments and you are unhappy with its condition when you are done (i.e. the nail claw chips), take it back to your dealer and have him replace it for you."

That said, I bought the TW36WB 36" Long Wrecker Pry Bar (because I had restricted room to work, and the 48" might be too long).

THE RESULTS:
I received the TW36WB today from Amazon.com, and I put it into action immediately, the results:

The nail claw, on the greater angled side of rocker head, pulled out the cut nails with some effort, however, much less effort than the less angled side (Fuller's ad says "Rocker head for more power" and great leverage". I say, that's true!). I have to say that all things considered, it worked great on the more angled side (more leveraged side), however, I was only able to reach five of the 18 nails that I needed to extract with that more leveraged side. Of the remaining 13 nails, which I had to pull out with the less angled side, about nine came out with some more effort. The other four, were HELL to pull out, mainly because by then the claw had bent some at the point of contact with the nails. It became difficult to get a good hold onto the cut nails from there on (for the last four nails), since cut nails barely have much of a head to grab anyway. There wasn't much room to hammer the cut nails back and forth to help lessen their hold, however, that's what I had to do to be able to finish the job with the wrecker bar, since there was not as good claw left by then.

BOTTOM LINE: It did the job, but the claws were damaged in the process. The claws won't work anymore for the job I used them (cut nails with little head), however, the claws will work fine with common wire nails. I think that the damage to the wrecker bar claws would have been negligible, had I had more room to use only the more leveraged side.

A TOUGH JOB! I don't think there's another bar that could have done the job as well as Fulton TW36WB 36" Long Wrecker Pry Bar, mainly because of the greater leverage of the rocker head, the dual claws, the alloy and girth of the steel, and it's Made in the USA (I don't buy products made in China). The bar saved me from a lot of labor!

ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS:
The hardened cut nails were only embedded a little under one inch, amazing the hold they have! Hardened nails are harder than the claws (and they'll make the forged steel of the claws look like soft metal. The Fulton TW36WB claws tackled the job about as well as it's going to get.), so, DON'T USE HARDENED CUT NAILS IF YOU INTEND TO EXTRACT THEM!!!!!!

... Read more

Asin: B0000224V0
Sales Rank: 5189
Subjects:  1. Hand Tools    2. Pry Bars   

Moonflower
Average Customer Review:
Audio CD (25 October, 1990)
list price: $19.98
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Reviews (33)

Great Santana Live/Studio Album
MOONFLOWER is a great half-live/half-studio album by Santana. Sure, Gregg Rolie is gone, but Greg Walker is a perfect substitute, imbuing the earlier songs with a soulful edge rooted in Memphis-Chicago-Texas-St. Louis-New Orleans-Detroit-Philadelphia-Kansas City blues/R&B traditions, and his rendition of the Zombies' "She's Not There" bests the outstanding original, turning what had been a wistful pop song into a thermonuclear blues-R&B-Latin-rock explosion. While you're getting the first three albums, THE ESSENTIAL SANTANA, the two BEST OFs, and GREATEST HITS, get this one.

Best Santana Album Ever!
I purchased this album when it was first released back in the late 1970's, and I still think its Sanata's best. A great mix of new studio tracks and smokin' live versions of old favorites, with one of the best Santana bands, and THE BEST VOCALIST Santana ever had..Greg Walker.

Best Santana Album Ever!
I purchased this album when it was first released back in the late 1970's, and I still think its Sanata's best. A great mix of new studio tracks and smokin' live versions of old favorites, with one of the best Santana bands, and THE BEST VOCALIST Santana ever had..Greg Walker. ... Read more

Asin: B0000025B0
Sales Rank: 98398
Subjects:  1. Album Rock    2. Blues-Rock    3. Hard Rock    4. Jazz-Rock    5. Latin Rock    6. Pop    7. Rock    8. Rock & Roll   

Sony MVCCD350 CD Mavica 3.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom
Average Customer Review:
Electronics
list price: $499.99 -- our price: Too Low To Display
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Editorial Review

The Sony Mavica CD350 combines the advantages and capacity of the instant-archive CD-R/RW format with a compact size that's easy to carry with you anywhere you roam. The Mavica CD350 features a 3.2-megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom, and a movie mode that shoots full-frame video.

Step-up Value
Here's a Sony feature that adds value to this digital camera and differentiates it from other models in the Sony lineup.

CD-RW Media: CD Mavica cameras shoot directly to 156 MB CD-R/RW discs, so there's room for hundreds of images and movie clips for instant archiving.

Optics and Resolution
The 3.2-megapixel resolution creates images up to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels, large enough to print 11-by-17-inch enlargements. Get closer to your subjects with the 3x optical zoom lens (41-123mm equivalency in 35mm photography). The Mavica CD350 also features a 3.2x digital zoom.

Storage and Transfer
Images are stored on high-capacity 156 MB CD-R (recordable) and CD-RW (rewritable) discs, enabling you to instantly archive your shots. Images can be downloaded to either a Mac or PC via USB connectivity, which means the camera can be connected to any USB-based Windows 98/Me/2000/XP and Mac OS 8.6 or later computer without installing any software.

Movie Mode
You can capture far more than still images with the MPEG Movie VX function. Most digital cameras' movie modes are limited to 30- or 60-second clips, but the Mavica CD350 can keep shooting until you've filled the CD-R/RW, approximately 6 minutes at full VGA resolution (640 x 480, 16 frames per second).

More Features
Though simple enough for a novice, the Mavica CD350 model includes advanced multipoint autofocus and multipattern exposure systems to capture the shot properly the first time. The camera's new auto fill-flash function can even sense when a subject is in shadow and automatically fire the flash.

Other features include:

• Large 2.5-inch TFT LCD monitor
• Built-in flash with auto, on, off, slow, and red-eye reduction modes
• Scene modes include twilight, twilight portrait, landscape, beach, snow, fireworks, and fast shutter
• Two-shot burst mode and multiburst mode of 16 images sized at 320 x 240 pixels

Power, Size, and Contents
The camera is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery NP-FM50 (included). It measures 5.2 by 3.6 by 2.9 inches and weighs 1.2 pounds. This package includes the Mavica CD350 digital camera, battery, and battery charger, USB and AV cables, 1 blank CD-R, 1 blank CD-RW, and CD-ROM with imaging software and USB drivers for Windows and Mac. ... Read more

Features

• Captures full-frame video (640 x 480), limited by CD media (6 minutes for 156 MB disc)
• Stores images on 3-inch, 156 MB CD-R/RW discs; 1 CD-R and 1 CD-RW included
• Powered by rechargeable lithium-ion battery (NP-FM50 included); connects with PCs and Macs via USB
• 3.2 megapixel sensor captures enough detail for prints up to 11 x 14
• 3x optical zoom plus 3.2x digital zoom (9.6x total)

Reviews (18)

Best Camera!
I love my Sony Mavica 350.I am a college student, and although the camera was a bit on the expensive side, it has never failed me.I have never had problems with other CD's and all of my pictures turn out beautifully.Like some users have said, it is not hard to use, and the manual is very well layed-out.The only downside would be the camera's size.Since I am in college, I take my camera to many parties, and it can be a nuisance sometimes to carry it around unless you have a carrying case.However, the quality of the pictures definitely makes up for it!!

Wonderful and convenient
A truly magnificent product. The mini-CD format is robust and so convenient - no longer any need to download pictures to the computer en masse - just view and select them one by one to e-mail, print or modify - they are safely stored on the CD, which fits in the DVD or CD-Rom drive of any computer that I have yet met.
The camera is easy to use and captures superb images either singly or in bursts and it will even take sound movies!
There was no problem with using SONY 200Mb Mavica miniCD's a available for mere pence. Easy to use and store away as one fills them up - there is a noticable tendency for one to take many more pictures with so much storage available.
The camera is robust and light and easy to use both outdoors and inside it gives superd quality images. The battery seems to last, on average for about 240 images but one can always carry a spare. It has performed well in subzero and warm sunlight outdoors with never a glitch.
This is a camera which embodies everything that I need, I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone as a valuable general purpose camera for both work and pleasure.

A Great Camera
I am a professional radiographer and photographer (25 years now) and I used both the Sony CD500, CD400, CD350, CD300, as well as a Nikon Coolpix for field research x-raying mummies in Peru. This means the cameras were pushed hard.....blowing sand, huge contrast ranges, high resolution radiographs needed, fast manual control of radical light conditions, etc.....essentially most of the tough conditions and imaging requirements you can imagine. Here's what I found:

The Sony Mavica CD500 & 300 beat them all. It's not the most expensive or the best resolution but we all thought it did the best job.

Mavica CD500: best of all....resolution, reasonable recording time, great image control for exposure, close-ups, better controls, pretty much everything

Mavica CD400: best resolution but extremely slow recording time made it impossible to work with most of the time....the CD300 often got 3-4 shots while the 400 was recording one.

Mavica CD350: not enough manual control for us, but usually got great images on automatic....some problems with exposure range for close-ups though

Mavica CD300: not the best resolution, but now that I've done some prints for publication from it's highest res setting I will not be buying any more 400s....just not a significant enough difference,
plus it's not as heavy or bulky.

Nikon Coolpix: not in the running by comparison with the Sonys....although it is more lightweight....we are buying mini CDs for 33 cents each in bulk... and getting 140-180 high res
images per CD.....they are so easy to format, initialize, and copy on any CD burner that I can't believe we even considered using memory stiks, or USB downloads.

The best features are common to both the Sony Mavica CD300 and 400 series though.....manual control of the images, excellent close up abilities, decent wide angle (which can be enhanced with add-on lenses if necessary), and both rapid video and automatic functions with night focusing for flash, etc., etc.

Finally! There is a great digital camera! ... Read more

Asin: B00008O35Z
Subjects:  1. Digital Camera (Cameras)    2. Photograph (Photography)   

Spider-Man (Widescreen Special Edition)
Director: Sam Raimi
Average Customer Review:
DVD (01 November, 2002)
list price: $19.94 -- our price: $14.96
(price subject to change: see help)
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Editorial Review

For devoted fans and nonfans alike, Spider-Man offers nothing less--and nothing more--than what you'd expect from a superhero blockbuster. Having proven his comic-book savvy with the original Darkman, director Sam Raimi brings ample energy and enthusiasm to Spidey's origin story, nicely establishing high-school nebbish Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) as a brainy outcast who reacts with appropriate euphoria--and well-tempered maturity--when a "super-spider" bite transforms him into the amazingly agile, web-shooting Spider-Man. That's all well and good, and so is Kirsten Dunst as Parker's girl-next-door sweetheart. Where Spider-Man falls short is in its hyperactive CGI action sequences, which play like a video game instead of the gravity-defying exploits of a flesh-and-blood superhero. Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as Spidey's schizoid nemesis, the Green Goblin, and the movie's a lot of fun overall. It's no match for Superman and Batman in bringing a beloved character to the screen, but it places a respectable third. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Reviews (1090)

Stan Lee presents, The Amazing Spider-man
I've got to say, this movie had it all. Special effects, good story, morals and even some good music. If you watch it you'll see what all the hype was about. I know most people aren't into superheros. Well guess what? Neither was I! I didn't want to see this movie when it came out but when I did see it, I was very impressed. Trust me, get this movie and I promise, you'll love it.

From a fan from the beginning...
I've collected Spider man comics for 20 years now, I know the story well. When they first decided to do this movie, I was skeptical...would they capture the mood of what peter parker was all about? Would they show the scene of when he was a masked/hooded wrestler trying to make extra cash?Would Willem DeFoe play the Green Goblin?

The answer is yes.The last thing mentioned about Defoe, well we all have it in our heads how Stan Lee drew all of the original characters when he brought us spidey back in the 60's.It's uncanny how you can grab certain actors out there and they look nearly exactly like how they were drawn!

Tobey McGuire does an excellent job as Peter Parker, and Kirsten Dunst is fabulous as Mary Jane Watson.The movie does not get to intelligent nor to dumb, it merely tells the great tale of the Amazing Spider Man.Even How the Green Goblins Glider soars around leaving a trail of smoke in the skyline is JUST how they used to draw it in the comics.

5 STARS...I don't know why they could have not done justice to the hulk like they did with Spider Man.Can't wait for the third one, which will feature the HOBGOBLIN!

I want to be bitten
I know there are Spider-man fans out there who probably didn't like the changes in the movie but not being a huge fan myself, loved it.Sam Raimi is king and shows us why in both action, direction, and special effects.AWESOME! ... Read more

Asin: B00005JKCH
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

Evil Dead II (Special Edition)
Director: Sam Raimi
Average Customer Review:
DVD (09 July, 2002)
list price: $19.98 -- our price: $15.98
(price subject to change: see help)
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Editorial Review

Writer-director Sam Raimi's extremely stylized, blood-soaked follow-up to his creepy Evil Dead isn't really a sequel; rather, it's a remake on a better budget. It also isn't really a horror film (though there are plenty of decapitations, zombies, supernatural demons, and gore) as much as it is a hilarious, sophisticated slapstick send-up of the terror genre. Raimi takes every horror convention that exists and exaggerates it with mind-blowing special effects, crossed with mocking Three Stooges humor. The plot alone is a genre cliché right out of any number of horror films. Several teens (including our hero, Ash, played by Bruce Campbell in a manic tour-de-force of physical comedy) visit a broken-down cottage in the woods--miles from civilization--find a copy of the Book of the Dead, and unleash supernatural powers that gut every character in sight. All, that is, except Ash, who takes this very personally and spends much of the of the film getting his head smashed while battling the unseen forces. Raimi uses this bare-bones story as a stage to showcase dazzling special effects and eye-popping visuals, including some of the most spectacular point-of-view Steadicam work ever (done by Peter Deming). Although it went unnoticed in the theaters, the film has since become an influential cult-video favorite, paving the way for over-the-top comic gross-out films like Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. The DVD version presents the film in its original 1:85 to 1 aspect ratio, and includes the theatrical trailer. --Dave McCoy ... Read more

Features

• Color
• THX
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Reviews (377)

Highly Creative, Highly Funny
Fun, unconventional horror/comedy, focusing more over style and inventiveness rather than logic and trite, mainstream pitfalls. This film is much like a cartoon, Raimi's tribute to The 3 Stooges, with Bruce Campbell doing a splendid job at making us laugh -- while covered in blood.

Many have complained about the story, explaining that it is shallow and underwritten. This isn't so. It's written to do one thing: make way for fun, creative wackiness. And it's full of imagination, full of emotion, full of life. Also, in the end, we care for Ash, and want to see more of him. Now is that bad writing? To care for the film's main character?

This film is told not through words from the screenplay, but by the images from the camera.

In a way this can be seen as an "Art" film, because of how unconventional it is, and maybe it's just.

Artists and experimental fans will find this film enjoyable.

I did (^_^)

0.5 STARS: Too much lame comedy & generalized stupidity!
The movie "Evil Dead II" contains too much lame comedy and extremely ridiculous creatures plus outrageous gore scenes to be effective as a "pure" horror movie.If you want to call this movie a sci-fi comedy, fine, but don't call it a pure horror movie because it isn't.If you want to have slap-stick comedy and "Three Stooges" like antics then make a cheesey comedy like this movie, but just don't put it in the horror section, ok?In my opinion, this is a poor movie as far as the horror movie genre is concerned.It's one thing to be gorey and imaginitive, but it's another thing to be just plain stupid and ridiculous and that's what we have here in the "Evil Dead II".I recommend the superior original "The Evil Dead" to this ridiculously stupid sequel and that monstrosity of a movie called "Army of Darkness".

Not being a big fan...
...I can still understand why it is a classic. The "comedy" of Evil Dead 2 really is of a certain style, it made me laugh a couple of times -in fact; I found myself laughing more often than I jumped in my seat. It is far overrated as a horror-movie, it's not scary at all -perhaps for its' time though, but compared to the Asian-horror-movies ruling this genre today it is not even to be compared to the "impact" of those.

The acting by Bruce Campbell, well, I don't think anyone else cold have been more fit for this character. He has a suitable face, with all the various expressions for all the kinds of crazy happenings taking part of the story behind Evil Dead 2. The other actors, well, they were just there -and that was probably the purpose of their contribution.

The effects; good for its' time? I don't know? Looking fake today anyway, but I understand this was a low-budget-movie. And the bad effects somehow becomes a part of the humour.

That being said; Another movie far overrated in my opininon, but indeed watchable. I don't know how many more times I'll watch it, but it feels ok to have added it to my movie-collection. ... Read more

Asin: 6305841861
Subjects:  1. Horror   

Crimes of Passion
Director: Ken Russell
Average Customer Review:
DVD (19 March, 2002)
list price: $19.98 -- our price: $17.98
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Editorial Review

The crazy man of British film, Ken Russell (Women in Love, Whore), hit the apex of guilty-pleasure absurdity with Crimes of Passion, a dark if pointed (and ultimately poignant) walk on the wild side. Although this schizophrenic, neon-blurred traipse through the red-light district of LosAngeles, courtesy of hooker and guide China Blue (Kathleen Turner), never made much money at the box office, it still managed to eke out a cult following. Barry Sandler's script felt a lot like a play with its rather stilted (but furiously funny) dialogue between Turner and Anthony Perkins, who plays an obsessed and crazed stalker/reverend who believes he is China Blue's savior. Their story is contrasted against that of Bobby Grady (John Laughlin), who is married to the materialistic Amy (Annie Potts). After taking a second job as a private investigator for a dress manufacturer who thinks his lead designer, Joanna Crane (Turner again), is selling patterns to a rival, Bobby becomes mired in a netherworld he never imagined. But it's Bobby who becomes Joanna/China Blue's true savior; it seems Joanna's husband cheated on her and she created the alter ego, China Blue, in order to control her world by making men dependent on her sexuality. The facade cracks after Bobby hits the scene. Russell's film is bawdy and even daring, and the unrated version on DVD features a couple of scenes (one with China Blue, a cop, and his nightstick, as well as some flashes of pornography) that were not included in the film's original release. Also for die-hard fans, Sandler originally ended the script at a more ambiguous place in the climactic scene in Joanna's apartment. An "epitaph" with Bobby at an encounter group was added to appease the distributor, who wanted a more upbeat, "Hollywood" conclusion. Sandler's original idea gave the film a real wallop, but despite the change, Crimes of Passion remains an original camp classic. --Paula Nechak ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen

Reviews (21)

The Nexus of all psycho-sexual dramas
You've seen it. You know what to expect. So go get the dvd already! This film has it all folks. Talent, raw Power, and a well endowed Kathleen Turner. Actually the best part about this film is Anthony Perkins, playing his wildest role yet, although he would later top this one in Edge of Sanity. I'm not going to review the film because the first editorial up there did a good job. This is a very entertaining flick which should definitley be checked out. Underrated.

Over the top enjoyment from the king of OTT!
One of Kathleen Turner's earlier films and one of Anthony Perkins's later films....and one of those films of its day.

A woman leads a double life as a designer by day and hooker by night. What's she escaping from? The former high school quarterback turned security "expert" and husband - what's he escaping from? And the reverend - what's he about. Watch the film to find out.

This is the film which demonstrated what a great actress Turner is and why she should still be a bigger star today than perhaps she is. She has such a wonderful voice and figure in this film - it's as if the part was written especially for her; perhaps it was! It also shows you how good Perkins was in a role where he could let himself go as over the top as Russell would like him to. He (Perkins) must have loved it.

OK, there are one or two sex scenes and there's some swearing, but the acting by the two leads is excellent. Annie Potts is also very good, as she always is - very different from her Ghostbusters role - but Laughlin is a bit of a disappointment. I wondered whether he was right for the role.

The musical score is supposedly written by Rick Wakeman, but is, of course, derived from Dvorak's New World Symphony. Wakeman does a great job and the music adds to the gloss of the film. The saxophone playing in the lovemaking scene is sensual in the extreme.

Ken Russell is not known for doing things in halves - and he hasn't here. If you can stand the commentary of him and the screenwriter over the film, you can get their thoughts as the movie plays - very insightful and a boon for budding Directors - and find out why he did scenes the way he did.

So, a great film and still very watchable today.

Would you like some Pan Am coffee or some TWA tea?
This movie is outrageous!I have loved it since the first time I saw it back in '84.Turner is like a super nova in this movie just blazing across the screen.The way she primps, struts, prisses, and drops her one-liner heavy dialogue is a delight.Perkins is creepy as hell and the hole thing just keeps pushing the envelope further and further.Definitely not for everybody, but if you have the taste for the bizarre, graphic, over-the-top filmaking, you'll love it. ... Read more

Asin: B00005R240
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Director: Peter Greenaway
Average Customer Review:
DVD (08 June, 2004)
list price: $14.98
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Editorial Review

Few directors polarize audiences like Peter Greenaway, a filmmaker asinfluenced by Jacobean revenge tragedy and 17th century painting as by theFrench New Wave. The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover isboth adored and detested for its combination of sumptuous beauty andrevolting decadence. A vile, gluttonous thief (Michael Gambon, TheSinging Detective) spews hate and abuse at a restaurant run by a stoicFrench cook (Richard Bohringer, Diva), but under the thief's nosehis wife (the ever-sensuous Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect) conductsan affair with a bookish lover (Alan Howard, Strapless). Clothing(by avant-garde designer Jean-Paul Gaultier) changes color as thecharacters move from room to room. Nudity, torture, rotting meat, and TimRoth (Reservoir Dogs) at his sleaziest all contribute theatmosphere of decay and excess. Not for everyone, but for some, essential.--Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Widescreen

Reviews (88)

Greenaway's Best
"Bon soir. Welcome to Le Hollandaise. You have a reservation? Many reservations? We are the best restaurant in all of London. It is not necessary to worry about eating at Le Hollandaise. Let me show you to your table. This way, please. Ignore the buffoon at that table."

Le Hollandaise is the fictional restaurant setting for Peter Greenaway's controversial 1989 film "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover". It was my first exposure to the work of Peter Greenaway and I fell in love. "Cook" is also Greenaway's most well known, most controversial and, therefore, financially successful film. After watching the film, watching many people walk out, I sought out Greenaway's earlier works and have been a faithful follower of his new films.

The Cook (Richard Bohringer) is the owner of Le Hollandaise, a grand, snooty restaurant serving the elite of London's upper class. He has a reputation for creating the most wonderful dishes. The Thief (Michael Gambon) makes himself a partner of the restaurant, forcing his favors upon the Cook and holding court in the restaurant every evening. His boorish manners and atrocious attitude towards everyone begins to have an effect on The Wife (Helen Mirren). Georgina can't stand her abusive, stupid, loud husband. One evening, she spots The Lover (Alan Howard) sitting alone at another table, his face buried in a book. He looks up. Soon, he follows her into the ladies room and they begin their affair under the nose of her husband. Each night, they become closer but also come closer to getting caught. The Cook soon aids in their liaisons.

In any Greenaway film, the most important aspect of the film is the design. This is closely followed by some sort of system and the story and subject matter closely follow that.

The Design

Greenaway is a rare filmmaker. Like Spielberg, Scorcese and Soderbergh, he is obviously very passionate about his films, a passion evident in the skill and craftsmanship involved in making his films. Greenaway started out as a painter and this is an important thing to know. It informs his work considerably, much like we are aware of Scorcese's Italian heritage when watching a classic like "Goodfellas" or "Raging Bull", or Spielberg's early attempts at making science fiction films when we watch a classic like "E.T." or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".When you learn that Greenaway is a painter, his film compositions become all the more interesting and complex. Each frame is meticulously composed; every detail worked out to the smallest piece of fabric. You will not see a film that looks like "Cook" again in your life. Greenaway has worked with the same cinematographer on a number of films. He and Sacha Vierny have created a rich body of work that is a sumptious treat for the eyes. Each of the frames of "Cook" seem to pay tribute to Dutch painters like Vermeer and Rembrandt. Our viewpoint is usually from a distance, creating the impression we are looking at a living painting. The film takes place in the large rooms of the restaurant, with a couple of brief, very memorable trips outside and to one other location, each of the rooms lit as they might be for a painting from the 16th Century. The architectural design and cinematography of "Cook" stands as a testament to film design.

Color

Each room not only has its own look, but its own feel as well, complemented by the design of the interior. The kitchen is functional, busy, and perhaps not completely clean. The dining room is grand, pretentious and obviously very expensive. The bathrooms are functional yet large as well. Each room of the restaurant is bathed in a particular color. The main dining room is filled with luxurious red velvet and red draperies and table clothes. The bathrooms are bright white. The kitchen is bathed in green. The predominant color of each room not only dazzles the viewer visually, but also serves to help create different feelings for the scenes. Georgina and Michael carry on their affair in each room of the restaurant and each of their trysts is different due to the functionality of the room.

The Good Bits

In preparation for this opinion, I watched the film again, to refresh it in my mind. I remembered that each of the character's costumes changed each night they visited the restaurant. Georgina wears a number of outfits that are always predominately black, but they always features a scarf or swath of fabric over the shoulder. Albert, the thief, usually wears a cumberband or sash. As they move from one room to the next, these accessories change color as well, reflecting the hue of the environment. I remembered that this particularly struck me. It seemed very dramatic, almost operatic. Watching it again, I realized that not every character is affected in this way. As the main characters move from one room to the next, the camera passes behind a wall, much like a live television broadcast from the 50s, before entering the next room. The camera passing behind the wall hides the editing involved and the characters enter the new room in the same clothes, but with different color accents. The costumes, designed by Jean Paul Gaultier are as interesting as the design of the rooms. Georgina's clothes become increasingly S & M inspired. Albert's clothes become noticeably gaudier. These elements add so much to the feeling and mood of the film.

Generalizations

Every Greenaway film I have seen has some sort of system at the basis of it. "The Pillow Book" was fascinated with Japanese calligraphy and this becomes a significant part of the story and design as the main character begins to write on her lover's body. "Drowning By Numbers" hides an ascending series of numbers in the visual composition as three generations of women in the same family all deal with philandering husbands. "The Belly Of An Architect" tells the story of an American architect building a structure in Rome that is much more complicated than he can handle. The film presents increasingly elaborate architectural designs between each scene. Greenaway's first feature "The Draughtsman's Contract" follows the adventures of an 18th Century draughtsman as he completes a commission to draw the estate of a wealthy woman. The progression of the drawings and the clues within provide a loose framework for the story. The systematic element of the story is one of the things that I always look forward to. The puzzle always adds something extra to watch and look for.

In "Cook", the characters go to the restaurant every night for a week. During each visit, the thief becomes more obnoxious, deplorable and despicable. Georgina becomes more desperate for love. The cook becomes more anxious to get rid of his unwanted partner. Each segment is introduced by a menu announcing the Specialities Du Jour, surrounded by the food specials of the evening. The menu is very elegant, pretentious and fitting for such a restaurant. The food surrounding the menu has a connection to one of the elements in the story. On, no, I will not, can not reveal that.

Greenaway's films address the issue of class. Characters are entrenched in the middle class, desperate to achieve riches, a place in society, comfort. Their actions prompt the main action within the story. In "Cook", the obnoxious, boorish thief is desperate to look presentable and become a member of the upper class. How does he do this? He forces his way into the restaurant and continues his underworld dealings to give him the means for a fancy lifestyle. Greenaway uses the thief as a model for most people in the upper class. He tells us that anyone in this class is really a derivation of Albert, a derivation of a thief.

The Naughty Bits

Greenaway's films enjoy a loyal following in the United States. His films have never achieved what anyone would call financial success; one recent film was not even released in the United States. Part of the reason for this is the subject matter of his films, and the reason I have chosen this film for my write-off. Every one of his films deals with people that are not in love, but need love and therefore take it. In "Cook", Albert does not love Georgina and she certainly doesn't love him, but she feels trapped and doesn't know where to go or what to do. When she finally finds love, Albert soon learns of it and puts a stop to it. Robbed of her last chance for true love, she takes revenge, releasing her nightmares. "Pillow Book", "The Draughtsman's Contract", "8 ½ Women" all have main characters that are similar. They all have needs, needs that must be, will be fulfilled, no matter what the cost. If these characters were able to love and be loved the films and stories wouldn't exist. It is their perversions that make the films real, watchable and interesting. When Greenaway makes a film that works successfully with these notions, they become memorable. When he is off his game, they don't work; we don't feel sympathy for the characters. "Cook" works because we can feel sympathy for Georgina and Michael. We can even feel sympathy for Albert. He is such an atrocious human being that we can imagine the horrible childhood that created him.

In one review I read about "Cook", the writer noted that they felt Greenaway let Albert off the hook too easily. Without revealing a lot of the climax, I don't agree. I felt that he let Georgina escape from her personal hell in a quick, expedient way.

More Naughty Bits

"Cook" was controversial because it has a lot of elements that are uncommon in American films. Two very natural looking humans appear nude often, before and during their romantic encounters. Helen Mirren has a voluptuous body type, another element that draws parallels to Dutch paintings and Alan Howard is also not a svelte male super model. Their encounters are truly erotic, interesting and much more arousing than most `love scenes' in American films. This alone would send shock waves through just about every religious watchdog group. Greenaway also includes some fairly graphic violence, prompting a lot of controversy and much of the revenue the film generated. I find it ironic that the MPAA will give a film about a serial killer who engages in explicit sexual intercourse before killing his victims as the camera agonizes over the death `R' ratings, but if the film depicts intercourse between two loving people and happens to include some violence, it can't receive a rating. In 1989, "Cook" was released as Unrated. When it finally hit video stores, two versions were available, the Unrated letterboxed version and a chopped up `R' rated version. Blockbuster would only carry the `R' rated version, which is about 30 minutes shorter than the Unrated version. Did these people see the same film? No.

The violence in "Cook" is fairly graphic. There are also some elements of a very unconventional nature in the climax that might be unsettling for some people. These elements only serve to strengthen the overall story, shocking the viewer, making us realize how far this affair has gone on.

And As You Leave The Theater

"Cook" is a film that deserves to be seen on the big screen. If video is your preferred method, please, please, please search out a copy of the uncut letterboxed version. With almost 30 minutes cut out, there is no way the `R' rated version can approximate the experience. The tape is out of print, so a newer video store may not have it. "Cook" is also a film more than worthy of a deluxe DVD edition, yet still hasn't been released on DVD.

"The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" is one of the most visually spectacular films I have ever seen. After watching it the first time, I imagined a play, a painting and an opera all combined into one film. It was, and remains, a shocking experience that I will remember for a long time.

Grotesque, soulless and brainless
Well, on the pros side, this movie is visually lush and highly stylized.That, however is rather superficially accomplished and is not enough to carry a movie.It does, however deal with a parade of grotesque behavior carried out by soulless and uncompelling characters - it is unconvincing, surreal and stupid.If you think that films that are weird and shocking are "brilliant" just for being that, then you may like like this one, but if you prefer a brain to accompany perversion, then skip this waste of celluloid.

Great Impressionist Moviemaking. Deserves more DVD extras!
The movie on the DVD for `The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover', written and directed by Peter Greenaway is probably about as far out in left field of the English and American filmmaking style as you can probably get without adopting Mel Gibson's device of directing a movie for an American audience spoken in two languages of antiquity. Greenaway's aesthetic belongs to a very select group of directors such as Ken Russell and Terry Gillian who follow their muse in some very unusual directions. The bridge between the conventional and the unconventional represented by Greenaway, Russell, and Gillian can probably be bridged by reference to some of the work of Stanley Kubrick such as `2001' and `Full Metal Jacket'.

One thing which Greenaway, Gillian, and Kubrick share with some greats such as the early Orson Wells and the directors who inspired him is an interest in making the whole cinematic environment work to contribute to the effect produced by the film. Greenaway and Gillian's set decorations in movies like this and in Gillian's `Brazil' and `The 12 Monkeys' is so rich you find yourself going through them with a pause at every new scene so you can take in all the rich detail of the stage setting. Greenaway's work is filmed in a large but almost completely enclosed set of four rooms encompassing the exterior, the kitchen, the dining room, and the lavatory of a very large restaurant. Each of the four main rooms has a predominant color and characters' costumes seem to literally change color as they move from one room to the next.

The change in colors is only the beginning. I almost believe Greenaway choose a restaurant as the principle venue of this little set piece as it offered such a rich source of images created by arrangements of produce, meats, pots and pans, knives, dough mixers, and sausage makers. The fate of unattended meat and walk-in freezers play an important role in some events in the story. Other important Greenaway trademarks in the stage setting are great oversized letters brought into the restaurant early in the movie as the pieces to the new name of the restaurant. These seem to have a role similar to the numbers in Greenaway's earlier work, `Drowning by Numbers' but don't quote me on that one.

The title of the movie does not do justice to the first two of the main characters, as `the Cook' is actually the head chef of this very large restaurant who rules over his kitchen as you may expect from Wolfgang Puck or Emeril Lagasse. `the Thief' is not a petty criminal but the owner of the restaurant and a fairly large scale racketeer whose main business is not simple burglary or bank holdups, but extortion which, like real gangsters, can be lacquered over with a veneer of civility (see `The Godfather, Part I'), if it were not for the fact that `the Thief' is a loutish bully who routinely beats his wife, lesser employees, and patrons in his restaurant.

A synopsis of the story is very simple which would easily fit into 80 minutes of a good film noir flick. The story of `The Maltese Falcon' makes this one look like it came from a relatively short story. Virtually all action takes place within and immediately outside the restaurant where the thief commonly assembles his subalterns and their consorts to dinner with him and his wife. `the Wife' makes frequent trips to what seems to be a unisex lavatory set entirely in bright white to meet in sexual congress with her lover, who is a solo diner in the same restaurant and whose attention, while eating, is buried in a book. The wife with the fact that if they meet right under her husband's nose, he will never suspect anything justifies the highly risky encounters. The problem with this reasoning is that the husband is so possessive, he can't abide the wife's frequent absences and follows her into the WC to hunt her down. This close escape is small melodrama compared to later scenes when the lover and the wife join in full unclothed intimacy hidden by the devices of the cook who provides them a place to hide in the giant kitchen pantry.

True to the wife's belief that the husband would not suspect hanky panky right under his nose, the couple is found out by a consort to one of the thief's underlings. At this point, when one finds it hard to believe the situation can get much more odd, it does. The naked pair escape the restaurant while naked by hiding in a walk-in freezer, then by making a getaway in the back of a truck filled with decomposing raw meat seen arriving at the restaurant three or four `movie days' before when the story opens. The fact that the thief finds and kills the lover is mundane compared to the wife's revenge on the husband, with help, again, from the cook.

While there are four lead actors on the marquee, the film is owned by Helen Mirrin and Michael Gambon playing the wife and the thief. Their roles and their interpretation of these roles so fill the screen as to make virtually all the other performances to blend in with the overrich scenery. Even Tim Roth, an important member of Quentin Tarantino's troupe of players who gets fifth billing, is practically invisible. Practically the only other role to stand out is that by a singing dishwasher whose voice fills the kitchen while he scrubs his pots and who plays a part in the discovery by the thief of the illicit lovers' hidey hole.

This is possibly Peter Greenaway's best known film, but I think it is just a bit less well done than `Drowning by Numbers'. And, while I would still give this movie five stars, the DVD screams out for a director's commentary and there is none. So, the DVD gets but four stars.
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Asin: B000059LGL
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

The Lair of the White Worm
Director: Ken Russell
Average Customer Review:
DVD (19 August, 2003)
list price: $14.98 -- our price: $13.48
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Editorial Review

Wittily updated from one of Dracula author Bram Stoker's lesser-known horror novels, The Lair of the White Worm is a camp classic that only Ken Russell could have delivered. It's got all the perversity one expects from the bombastic director of Tommy and Altered States: sensible plotting, intelligent dialogue laced with double entendre, graphic imagery with Boschian intensity, and a mischievous disregard for good taste and decorum. In other words, it's heretically hilarious, especially when skeptical Lord D'Ampton (fresh-faced Hugh Grant, in one of his earliest films) begins to suspect that seductive neighbor Sylvia (Amanda Donohoe, game for anything) is connected to the local legend of a monstrous serpent that feeds on sacrificial virgins. Evidence mounts with the help of a local archaeologist (Peter Capaldi) and two endangered sisters (Catherine Oxenberg, Sammi Davis), and Russell infuses Stoker's grisly plot with his inimitable brand of blasphemy, including a gouged eyeball, a venom-splattered crucifix, Roman soldiers raping nuns (in a delirious hallucination sequence), and some of the funniest one-liners since Young Frankenstein. Prudes beware; everyone else…enjoy! --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Widescreen

Reviews (36)

Terrible
I used to like this film back in the late 80s but after purchasing it, reading the book and watching it again I realized that there isn't much to say that is redeeming of this film. Sure it's low budget, but the story and characters are so cheesy and NOT in a good b movie way. I guess this film will still have it's fans but after reading the book (I dont normally compare books to films because its downright impossible to compare) I found the characters just not that likeable and the ending is very ridiculous. For a film to achieve cult status isn't too hard if its a b movie but whether its a good film or not is the real question. As for me I rate this low because I find it atrocious but for it's fans, the ones out there that REALLY love this film and call it a "classic" I must say I hope some day they remake the story with better actors, effects and plotting.

Great Campy Horror Film!Great Fun!
I recommend this film if you like campy horror films and/or if you like the director Ken Russell.This film features the debut and breakthrough performance by Hugh Grant.He is great as the dashing playboy vampire hunter.I consider this his best performance.

This movie is very racy, a characteristic of the vampire genre.But racy is one thing, Catherine Oxenberg is another!She is beyond description beautiful in this movie, not to be missed!

The plot is excellent, equal parts mystery, supernatural horror, and adventure.

It is also fun because it centers around four young people, two couples, so the vampire hunt becomes kind of like a really cool double date.The hallucination sequences, a'la Russell's other great horror flick "Altered States," lift the film above the typical vampire flick, letting us glimpse the characters' internal psychological states.

The final scene with Catherine Oxenberg is incredible, and I am sure you will agree.Don't miss this cult classic!

Campy as hell
but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is typical Russell; weird non-fitting dreams, and definitely not enough violence, horror or sex when, here, it wouldn't be superfluous, but highly helpful in making the film even better. The acting is interesting, to say the least. Worth a watch or two, but try to get a cheap used copy. ... Read more

Asin: B00009YXHG
Subjects:  1. Horror   

Damaged
Average Customer Review:
Audio CD (25 October, 1990)
list price: $16.98 -- our price: $13.99
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Editorial Review

Founded by guitarist/songwriter Greg Ginn, Black Flag exploded out of L.A. in 1981 with a debut album so confrontational that MCA Records refused to release it, stating that Black Flag was "immoral" and lacking "redeeming social value." When the album finally came out on Ginn's own SST label, it was clear why MCA recoiled, as Black Flag's skinhead look and hardcore sound signaled a new chapter in punk--and rock in general. With Henry Rollins's venom-dripping vocals leading the way, the album features such hostile teeth-gnashers as "Rise Above" ("Try to stop us/It's no use"), "Six Pack" ("I got a six pack, and nothing to do"), and, of course, "Life of Pain."--Billy Altman ... Read more

Reviews (109)

grossly over-rated
It's ok, it's nothing to write home about.
A terrible production, a few memorable songs. Singer Henry Rollins has a charm (if you can call it that)
Overall I just find this to be a great example of the Rolling stone Magazine's stupidity.
They rate this album as one of the top 250 of all time, which puts a picture of a load of dribbling baby's in my head. Bar the opening track where he shouts 'society's all F'ing cool, think theyre smart can't think for themselves, laugh at us behind our backs- I find satisfaction in what they lack' the disc is a drag, and never lives up to those opening moments.
While 'spray paint the walls' (track two) is somewhat punk and healthy, the rest fails by not being an 'anti-parent' record (as it was 'slated by mca was it?), but just a dumb record. Even tv party reminds me of those boys who think drinking beer and watching tv is not depressing.
Even if there was nothing left in my brain I would'nt do that more than once a month.
Don't go buying this if you are an in any way normal person who does not like noisy hardcore punk of early 80's america.
just scrapes three stars for what it is. Magnificent cover. I'm sure it's one of the best covers of all time, but as for rolling stone, these people really need to check themselves. They are missing too much

aggro-spew deluxe
The Flag were a difficult mess. The revolving-door band member policy made them tenatively brilliant. Greg Ginn is the greatest/most awful guitar player ,ever. He's into the Dead fer godsakes. His solos are laughable-His riffs are blindingly great. Rollins was a hired gun when they recorded this atomic blast of a record. He stopped slinging ice-cream in Washington and got in the van. Rollins eventually destroyed the Flag with his caveman-like poetry and his horribly self-serious posturing. Don't get me wrong. I love Black Flag, and this is their best record. "DAMAGED II" is the greatest rock song ever created. This is the Flag at their zenith. Crazy, violent, sometimes ironically poppy; this is the record where everything clicked. The poetry readings and 20 minute instrumentals came later. "My War" is an enjoyable pre-cursor of later missteps. The "Damaged" LP stands alone

punk rock
I dare you to try listening to "Damage" while driving a car. If for some miraculous reason, you can avoid getting a speeding ticket, you are either deaf or oblivious to the blitzkreig of screaming guitar, lightning fast rhythm section, and rollins defying roar! Black Flag grab you by the balls and don't let go, until your on your knees gasping for air. How these guys can channel their energy into the studio and produce an album this amazing is mind blowing. I consider Greg Ginn to be one of the greatest guitarist in rock history. To incoporate raw power chords, and lightning fast, screeching solos that captivate you, and tie all the other noise together, is amazing. There is not a dull moment on this cd, with the exception of tv party (which may be funny, but gets old relatively fast, and isnt very creative musically) Do yourself a favor by this album. Sit down on the couch with a 6 pack. Let all your emotions out.

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Asin: B000000LZ2
Subjects:  1. American Punk    2. American Underground    3. Hardcore Punk    4. L.A. Punk    5. Pop    6. Punk    7. Rock    8. United States of America   

Diamonds are Forever
Director: Guy Hamilton
Average Customer Review:
DVD (17 October, 2000)
list price: $26.98
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Editorial Review

Sean Connery retired from the 007 franchise after You Only Live Twice (replaced by George Lazenby in the underrated and underperforming On Her Majesty's Secret Service) but was lured back for one last official appearance as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. He's in fine form--cool but ruthless--in a sharp precredits sequence hunting the unkillable Blofeld (a suavely menacing Charles Gray in this incarnation), but the MacGuffin of a story (involving diamond smuggling, a superlaser on a satellite, and Blofeld's latest plot to rule the world ) is full of the groaning tongue-in-cheek gags that Roger Moore would make his signature. Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton keeps the film zipping along gamely from one entertaining set piece to another, including a terrific car chase in a parking lot, a battle with a pair of bikini-clad killer gymnasts named Bambi and Thumper, and a deadly game with a bizarre pair of fey, sardonic killers who dispatch their victims with elaborate invention. Jill St. John is the brassy but not too bright American smuggler Tiffany Case, and country singer and pork sausage king Jimmy Dean costars as a reclusive billionaire with not-so-subtle parallels to Howard Hughes. Shirley Bassey belts out the memorable theme song, one of the series' best. Connery retired again after this one but he returned once more, for Never Say Never Again 15 years later for a rival production company. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen

Reviews (112)

Sean Connery was never to old to play Bond!
I could never get to much Connery, the same goes for Moore, They will never be to old. These guys are the best!

Diamonds Are Fun
Firstly, like all of the DVD releases in this series, there are tons of extras and archival materials and it looks great. Secondly, this film was as much an experiment with direction as it was a return to Sean Connery.

By 1971 spies were looking less glamorous and more corrupt by the week. Thank you Richard Nixon. In the mean time, the nature of cinema, especially in the early seventies, was rapidly changing; blockbusters were bombing, smaller personal and political dramas were being made and porno was going mainstream. James Bond might have seemed out of touch with the times (which is reportedly the advice that led George Lazenby to leave the roll). So "Diamonds Are Forever" is a few things; a hugely anticipated return for Sean Connery AND the absolute opposite of the otherwise excellent "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", which came right before it in '69. And, while I agree that there's something a little cheaper about this film (and maybe the first two Roger Moore's as well), it's also a totally fun ride.

I disagree with those who dislike Connery's performance in this. I think it's his most assured of the whole series. He already looked "ponchy" and bored in "You Only Live Twice", here he looks older but seems to be genuinely enjoying himself in the roll he created while also delivering some of the series' wittiest lines. He plays it a bit lighter but it's a lighter film and he's still very much James Bond. "Diamonds" also features a great cast of character actors and John Barry's score strikes and glitters in all the right places.

Now a warning; this film embraces seventies style head on so be prepared to see Bond sporting a short, fat pink tie and, later, a loud plaid blazer. Everyone else follows suit. Roger Moore just looked better in this stuff (and for the Moore haters out there, don't forget Roger is actually OLDER than Connery and he played the roll for over a decade longer!). Anyway, "Diamonds Are Forever" is a very calculated piece of pop art that works 95% of the time. True, it's different than the other Connery films but he handles it with ease and more charm than Pierce Brosnan could ever understand.

The Worst Bond !
This Bond movie is in my opinion the worst one to date, the locations suck (Holland, the US, how exotic), the story line is silly, if you want to have an armageddon plot at least make it believable, like in "The Spy who loved Me", the lead woman is not very attractive, rather looks like a cheap slut, Sean Connery appears unmotivated, then you have these disturbing homosexual killers, who are supposed to be funny, but fail like just about everything else in this movie. Don't bother to buy this film. ... Read more

Asin: B00004W9C9
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-action/Adventure   

Casino Royale [Original Soundtrack]
Average Customer Review:
Audio CD (15 October, 2002)
list price: $17.98 -- our price: $13.99
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Editorial Review

The Austin Powers series was hardly the first to spoof James Bond. At the very height of '60s Bondmania, this sprawling, big-budget parody turned the trick, complete with an all-star cast of multiple, dueling Bonds and a bubbly romp of a musical score by Burt Bacharach. Indeed, this swingin' slice of '60s pop kitsch seems to have inspired much of Mike Myers's own later Powers musical tack. Anchored by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' jaunty main theme and the Brazilian jazz inflections of Dusty Springfield's sublime interpretation of Bacharach's evergreen "The Look of Love," the collection bounds merrily from blaring orchestral action flourishes through Bacharach's own savory takes on jazz-pop and musical send-ups of everything from vaudeville to international pomp and circumstance. It's a dizzy, lighthearted delight from first track to last. --Jerry McCulley ... Read more

Features

• Soundtrack

Reviews (18)

Bacharach's Bad Luck With Cinema Soundtracks
It took a rebel like Butch Cassidy and a drunk like Arthur to cure it, but back in the Swinging 60s long before those two showed up, Burt Bacharach, who was the toast of the music publishing world and the pop charts, really couldn't get a song on a bona fide hit film.

Case in point: "Casino Royale," a film that was the sloppiest of messes, with directors quitting in the middle of the project, and two stars who hated each other working on the movie! But the calm and evocative centerpiece was the score that Bacharach crafted, in all its super spy spoof superbness!

The disc will give you the bulk of the music cues from the film, though not completely in order. But the true test of a soundtrack recording is can you enjoy it without having seen the film? The answer here is a resounding yes! In fact, you might enjoy it MORE if you haven't viewed the movie.

The orchestrations are top notch, and very espionage evocative! Plus you get Dusty Springfield crooning what could be the sexiest mainstream pop song in history: "The Look Of Love!"

The disc isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the film turned out to be! It's one of the m