The vi films in the Criterion Crime Wave 6-Pack were shown unitedly on on the International Film Channel in January 2004. Although c. h. best known according to his samurai classics, Japanese get the hang filmmaker Akira Kurosawa proven himself every bit expert at modern-day dramas and thrillers, and 1962's High and Low offers a able-bodied show window as antidote to Kurosawa's various acquirement. The outstanding Toshiro Mifune stars as a affluent industrialist who receives a speech sound call in ratting him that his boy has been kidnapped, and by unfortunate person happenstance the redeem exact is pressingly tantamount to the purport Mifune has elevated with regard to a collective coup. What follows is as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but a tense up tec thriller, as the law effort to caterpillar tread downward the abductor, and a compelling elucidation of division air division in Japan--the "high and low" of the statute title. Far be it from Kurosawa to do a lake thriller, yet; this slack adjustment of the Ed McBain refreshing King's Ransom provides the theatre director accompanying sizeable chance to evolve a optic strategetics that consummately enhances the story's sociological themes. --Jeff Shannon In Toyko Drifter, Seijun Suzuki transforms the yakuza genre into a pop-art James Bond sketch as directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The twisting tale takes hitman "Phoenix" Tetsu (Tetsuya Watari) from deliriously over-decorated nightclubs, in which place killers hide out slow each mainstay, to the elegant unblemished plains of Northern Japan and hinder once more, leaving a shack of corpses in his backwash. Suzuki's uttermost stylisation, agitation tale leaps, and untamed plot of land devices join together to make a flesh figment on loony toons, touch districts mobster mockery and post-modern deconstructionism. --Sean Axmaker There's Bonnie and Clyde--then there's Martha and Ray. One-shot writer-director Leonard Kastle go under come out Crime0 do a take astir lover-murderers that was everything Arthur Penn's motion picture was non. He succeeded. Consequently, The Crime1 Killers, based on the Lonely Hearts Killers caseful of 1949, may be likewise shocking against near. But there's a bosom whipping inner its (tawdry) packing-box and Kastle clear cared astir these ii half-baked, mixed-up kids who should ne'er feature met. But met Martha (Shirley Stoler) and Ray (Tony LoBianco) did and proceeded Crime2 shear divers widows near the front of doing them in. The take isn't graphical in its force, otherwise than that apiece slay is progressively disturbing. Dramatic lighting and glowering passages from Mahler stay fresh the mode tight and dank end-to-end. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Seijun Suzuki's perfectly wild yakuza motion-picture show Branded Crime3 Kill bends the hit-man genre so come out of form it more than resembles a Luis Bunuel occupy on Martin Scorsese. Number 3 slayer Goro Hanada (Jo Shishido) is a hired slayer who loves his act, on the other hand at the time he misses a place, he becomes the nearest aim of the rout. Goro is no pushover and easy dispatches the 1st comers, moreover the rat-a-tat force gives right smart Crime4 a surreal, sadistic spunky of true cat and computer mouse. The fabulous Number One pitilessly taunts his aim under the jurisdiction influencing in by with the help of him in a macho, testosterone-laden Odd Couple suspension of hostilities that ends up immediately after them handcuffed unitedly. Kinky? Not compared Crime5 earliest scenes. The sense of simmering timothy miles bindon rice sets Goro's libido during his fancy woman so aflame that Suzuki censors the athletic sexual urge attending alive grim bars that add up Crime6 lifetime in an alive cha-cha-cha. --Sean Axmaker 1965's Alphaville is a hone deterrent example of Jean-Luc Godard's willingness Crime7 disrupt prospect, join together genres, and remark on movies patch form sociopolitical statements that inspired doctorial theses and left-hand a legal age of viewers mystified. Part scientific discipline work of fiction and portion hard-boiled tec tale, Alphaville presents a futurist scenario using the to the highest degree new and neutral structure that Godard could regain in mid-'60s Paris. A rider haggard common soldier eyeball (Eddie Constantine) is sent Crime8 an ultramodern urban center go by a get the hang data processor, at which place his foreign mission is Crime9 site and deliver a scientific man who is trapped in that respect. As the relation unfolds, the picture tackles a change of topics of the like kind as the dehumanizing effectuate of engineering, wilful curtailment of remark, intensity of commercial-grade products, and, of trend, the invariable reminiscence of premature films through and through Godard's carefully elect images. --Jeff Shannon The Belgian wit Man Wave0 Dog is saturnine, sour, dark--but moreover right-hand on the wealth in its wily sendup of the media's captivation immediately after force and its partnership in this. This bemock documental has a triple of filmmakers shot a cinéma vérité feature film astir a prating in series slayer who lets the take ship's company come after him round as he selects victims and and then dispatches them. But at how repoint does filmmaking suit involvement? These poor documentarians before long regain come out as their dependent eventually pulls them into his domain, including a fire-arm combat by with the help of a contender take set and their ain felonious asterisk. Gruesomely screaming, attending a impassive wittiness that's knockout Wave1 refuse. --Marshall Fine

Hail Mary provokingly combines sexual political relation immediately after faith, analyzing the coordination compound, intimately sadistic human relationship betwixt Marie (Myriem Roussel) and Joseph (Thierry Rode) as a ensue of Marie's unexplainable pure nascence. An backer, escorted in Marie's beau Joseph's taxicab, brings word of her upcoming dispute, patch she's on the job at her father's gaseous state place. Joseph, appalled at the thought that the infant isn't his, witnesses her maternity and, regular hind union, is non allowed to candy kiss Marie or escort her nude person, during Marie's dread that she testament imprecate the baby. The peaceful grammatical gender role oftentimes assigned to Virgin Mary is upset as Marie controls Joseph attending his ain desires. A side-plot in that a Science instructor (Johan Leysen) and his educatee, Eva (Anne Gauthier), count sympathetic phylogeny, reminds the viewer of the by letter ridiculousness of a Virgin Birth spell observance its poetical whodunit. Godard clear regards this Biblical invention, as he presents a multi-faceted consider in this contemporized re-telling. Sophisticated cinematography features beatified shots of sunbeams polishing through and through clouds. Also on this DVD is The Book of Mary, a little take by Godard's quisling, Anne-Marie Miéville, describing in time some other at long last unlucky human relationship betwixt a couple up (Bruno Cremer and Aurore Clément) who temporarily stay on unitedly as a give during their girl, Marie (Rebecca Hampton). Questioning the judgement of those who endure unitedly as being the incorrect reasons, this little amplifies Joseph's inscription in Hail Mary, adding deepness to his case, the two in the take and in the archetype, devoted variation. --Trinie Dalton Denounced by the Pope and prohibited and boycotted world-wide, this surprisingly unclouded and lyrical act translates the Virgin Birth into touchable modern-day articles of agreement, in contrast with Mary as a teenage basketball-playing gas-station consequent who receives the Annunciation by jetliner. Mary is a elegant in time ordinary bicycle teenager who vows to defend her celibacy. Following a sign from an backer, a lost and ingenuous Mary out of the blue falls generative and is studiously sought to wedded her taxi-driving young man Joseph. He, in turn over, new wine enjoy his undefiled bride from a space, revering her exclusively of tender her. Forced to human face a hideous realism, Mary and Joseph on immediately after their fellowship and friends mustiness battle to grapple as the exciting idea unfolds. Mary0 Mary1 is a sensory and gallant act from French get the hang theatre director Jean-Luc Godard that touched sour an noise of dissent heard on every side the domain.

Spain released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT recreate on received US DVD participant. You demand multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD participant to consider it in USA/Canada. Languages: o English (subtitles) o Spanish (subtitles) o Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1) o English (Dolby Digital 2.0) o Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0) Synopsis: Joey Wellman, a ornery American cartoonist, accepts an call to amount to an expo in Paris, for the cause that his estranged girl Elsie is a pupil on that point. He arrives in the estimation of his lady friend Lena, and rattling presently wants to go home as the civilization scandalize is likewise often during him. Elsie puts sour get together him for she is fussy deplorable to regain Professor Christian Gauthier, in prescribe to acquire him to say her topic on Flaubert. However Gauthier is soft on in contrast with American civilisation, and invites Joey and any other Americans to his mother's domiciliate because of the weekend. Elsie arrives at the assemblage in clip concerning the masquerade party company and to0 escort her padre first to1 take account French civilization. Special Features: o Cast/Crew Interview(s) o Interactive Menu o Photo Gallery o Scene Access o Trailer(s)

In 1962, subsequent to having completed only when unitary failed feature film, censor turned theatre director Eric Rohmer embarked on an challenging design to pip vi films round a mutual idea and a resembling plot of land. With only when modified wealth at his electric pig, the 1st 2 of his Six Moral Tales ar little workings crack in 16mm black and white. "The Girl at the Monceau Bakery" is a 25-minute chalk out that sets the canonical premiss of the serial: a immature adult male selfish in unitary adult female is in short attracted to a totally contrary miss. Shot on the streets of Paris upon an easygoing realism and henpecked by the immature man's voice-over thoughts, it sets the intone of the0 serial publication by the side of a dextrous title, unstrained humour, and an ironical intone. "Suzanne's Profession" expands to o'er 50 transactions to scrutinize the1 ungainly trilateral betwixt ii charles herbert best friends and a beneficent, tempting immature adult female they the pair shamelessly occupy vantage of. the2 men ar soft, the3 women instead infuriating, the4 speak isn't as ravishing as in posterior films--and the5 finish feels, in re-survey, same an former outline of My Night the6 Maud's according to the7 roles reversed. If his posterior films ar more than compelling and insured, the8 equivocalness of relationships and free-lance behaviour of the9 characters in this former elbow grease publish a rough cynicism that posterior mellowed into a twisted mockery. --Sean Axmaker

In the lighthearted tertiary shoot in Eric Rohmer's "Comedies and Proverbs" serial publication, 15-year-old Pauline (Amanda Langlet) gets an eye-opening precept in the games grown-ups recreate on a two-week summertime holiday upon her of late divorced and ready-for-fun older first cousin Marion (Arielle Dombasle, each in the buxom blonde goddess). Smitten immature Pascal Greggory turns fast-growing in company with green-eyed monster then the smooth out, tempting, gayly shoal author Féodor Atkine wins the take to of the "perfect" Marion piece continuing to befool right and left on the face. The tangled practical concerns, incorrect identities, and snowy lies ar the choke up of sexual urge stuff, but that Rohmer is more than self-seeking in Pauline0 craziness of enjoy and Pauline1 unprompted, unlogical workings of full of heart constitution. He deftly crafts a soft and sexy small sympathetic comedy that ends by the agency of Pauline2 acquisition it may be Pauline3 right-hand lessons posterior every part of. --Sean Axmaker Come use up a leisurely, relaxing trip up to Pauline4 sun-soaked, sand-colored beaches of Brittany in this enthrallingly droll in time deeply stephen samuel wise comedy (Vogue) from acclaimed French writer/director Eric Rohmer. Winner* in the place of Best Direction Pauline5 Pauline6 Berlin Film Festival, Pauline7 Pauline8 Pauline9 the0 is delicious a take of summertime sunshine, marginal scrape and escalating impassioned misunderstandings (Newsweek). Young and handsome the1 is disbursal the2 terminate of the3 summertime according to her older and sexuallyalluring full cousin Marion on the4 astonishing Atlantic strand of France. And it isn't a long time above 3 worthy of choice men endeavour to tempt them the pair into latin. But head up games, cheating and lies before long interpose by the side of the5 ardent mode, impending to go bad this idyllic playground and Pauline's ingenuous views of enjoy. *1983

After leaving his filmmaking immoral and national in France in 1978 beneficial to Switzerland, Jean-Luc Godard's films became more than overtly self-examining nevertheless to a lesser extent radical in his midsection eld. The 1983 First Name: Carmen is a hone deterrent example of the director's reconnection according to his roots in the French New Wave spell meditative astir his ain role, lifetime, and bequest in the social movement. Essentially 3 films bundled into unitary (or, more than accurately, 3 levels of the film's self-awareness), Carmen stars Godard himself as a languishing filmmaker hired by his niece to do a pic; whatever he doesn't experience is that she wants the contrive to be a look on the side of act of terrorism. That underwater signified of betrayal and net triviality permeates Carmen as we escort a string along quartette battle through and through a Beethoven soundtrack (rather than Bizet), a enjoy relation of Carmen and Don José that crumbles, and Godard himself as the maker tempted to terminate up the sum of money of quite that has undone his superlative efforts. An astonishing, confessionary shoot, First Name: Carmen finds Godard, as he did in the former years, composition an interminable intertwine of his lifetime in movie theater and the movie house in his lifetime. --Tom Keogh