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Twas the Night Before Christmas
: :Animators of all things Christmas, Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass (Frosty the Snowman) take on the famous poem by Clement Moore. Narrated by Joel Grey, the story opens on the night before Christmas, but the reading of the poem must be stopped when two creatures in the house begin to stir: family men Mr. Trundle and Father Mouse. Their restlessness stems from the fact that Santa is angry at the residents of Junctionville, returning all their letters without even opening them. The reason? Somebody wrote a letter to the editor of the ...
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The Wizard of Oz in Concert - Dreams Come True
:Description:A live performance of a modern classic in a concert setting.
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A Christmas Carol
: :Standing out in the crowded field of screen adaptations of the classic Dickens novel A Christmas Carol is hard to do, but this version pulls it off. When a transparent Jacob Marley walks through Ebenezer Scrooge's apartment door, you know you're seeing something both timeless and contemporary. Other strategically placed special effects--a funnel cloud that transports Scrooge and the ghost of Christmas present, the hollow specter of Christmas future--keep you riveted without slipping into anachronism. But, as good as the technology is, the performances are what really power this 93-minute TNT interpretation. Patrick ...
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Cabaret (25th Anniversary Special Edition)
: essential video:Winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey), Cabaret would also have taken Best Picture if it hadn't been competing against The Godfather as the most acclaimed film of 1972. (Francis Ford Coppola would have to wait two years before winning Best Director, for The Godfather, Part II.) Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed stage production, which was in turn inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and the play and movie I Am a Camera, this remarkable musical turns the ...
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Seven Per Cent Solution
: :Writer Nicholas Meyer (who went on to write two of the best Star Trek films) made his bones with his adaptation of his bestselling novel, directed by Herbert Ross. Fanciful and entertaining, it imagines what might have happened had Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) convinced Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) to seek a cure for his cocaine addiction from Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin). This meeting of the minds takes a turn into adventure when Holmes and Freud team up to solve a kidnapping mystery. Arkin is intriguingly likable as Freud, while Williamson makes a ...
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Kafka
: :The sophomore effort by Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape) is an audacious and stylistically impressive experiment in a completely different direction from his debut. Working from a script by Lem Dobbs, Soderbergh follows the miserable day-to-day existence of Franz Kafka (Jeremy Irons), an insurance clerk in a large, impersonal company. Hiding out in his garret at night, he writes material he assumes no one will ever read. But then he happens upon clues that make him believe there is some plot afoot to suppress thought and he follows the trail into a ...
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Music of Chance
: :The sophomore effort by Steven Soderbergh (sex, lies, and videotape) is an audacious and stylistically impressive experiment in a completely different direction from his debut. Working from a script by Lem Dobbs, Soderbergh follows the miserable day-to-day existence of Franz Kafka (Jeremy Irons), an insurance clerk in a large, impersonal company. Hiding out in his garret at night, he writes material he assumes no one will ever read. But then he happens upon clues that make him believe there is some plot afoot to suppress thought and he follows the trail into a ...
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Broadway's Lost Treasures
:Description:Joel Grey, Carol Channing, John Raitt, Patti LuPone, Yul Brynner, Zero Mostel--these greats are among the original-cast performers featured in this unique filmed compendium of Broadway showstoppers. Seen only once in their original Tony Award® telecasts (1967–1986), these 22 knock-out performances come with new introductions by some of the featured performers, including Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, and Chita Rivera. BONUS: Both DVD and VHS formats feature five extra performances not seen on PBS! Program includes: BROADWAY DIVAS Vivian Blaine, 'Adelaide's Lament,' Guys and Dolls Patti LuPone, 'A New Argentina,' Evita Angela Lansbury, 'Worst ...
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Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
: :Talk about hubris: this film, released at the height of sequelmania in the mid-1980s, came with its own intimations of future sequels built right into the title. Unfortunately, you have to make a good first film in order to generate follow-ups--something these filmmakers didn't manage--so the adventure began and ended with this one. Based on the pulp paperback adventure series The Destroyer, the film deals with a ne'er-do-well, Remo Williams (Fred Ward), who is recruited to battle the forces of evil. He is trained by an Asian martial arts master who, in those ...
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Further Tales of City (2pc)
:Description:ARMISTEAD MAUPIN’S FURTHER TALES OF THE CITY is the third installment of Maupin’s classic saga of San Francisco life. Set in 1981, the four-hour miniseries involves the residents of 28 Barbary Lane in a racy and rollicking adventure/mystery that leaps from Golden Gate Park to the home of a Hollywood icon to a remote island in the Alaskan wilderness. As usual in Maupin’s world, romantic entanglements abound. Landlady Anna Madrigal (OLYMPIA DUKAKIS) is stunned by her mother’s sudden arrival. Mother Mucca (JACKIE BURROUGHS) who runs a bordello in Nevada is in town to ...
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