What it is: James Bond is a supersuave British agent with a license to kill and a liking for martinis shaken, not stirred.... No, we know that you know who James Bond is. Suffice to say that coming out in October are six Bond movies (three Connery, two Moore, one Brosnan) on Blu-ray for the first time: Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, and Die Another Day.
Why it's Significant: High-definition fans tend to like action movies. James Bond is the most famous action franchise of all time. Put two and two together, and you have either a long-awaited addition to your collection or another reason for upgrading to Blu-ray. The six films are available individually, in two three-packs, or in an Amazon-exclusive six-pack. --David
P.S.: The prospect of beautiful Bond women in Blu doesn't hurt either. Below you can watch Ursula Andress's memorable entrance in the first Bond movie, Dr. No.
A quintessential leading man in every sense of the word, Paul Newman was an actor, a director, a producer, a philanthropist, and one-half of Hollywood's longest double-star marriage. Now gone at the age of 83, we lose yet another one of film's icons. Newman had reportedly been battling cancer for years, but would only respond to inquiries with "[I'm] doing nicely."
His filmography is well known; his two partnerships with Robert Redford (in The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) defined "buddy movie"; the pair always hoped to reunite once more but never found the right project. He fit well into the role of antihero in films such as Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, and Hud; the '70s and '80s saw him working with directors such as Martin Scorsese (The Color of Money, for which he won his only Oscar in addition to two honorary ones), Sydney Pollack (Absence of Malice), Sidney Lumet (The Verdict), and even the Coen Brothers (The Hudsucker Proxy).
In the last decade he took smaller roles, with his final on-screen appearance as the father of Daniel Craig in Road to Perdition. His last screen credit was voicing Doc, the cranky aging former champion racer in Disney's Cars, a natural fit for the racing enthusiast who competed as recently as last year.
The man with the famous ice-blue eyes got his start in theater, studying at the Actors Studio with Marlon Brando, James Dean and Karl Malden. Through the stage, he met actress Joanne Woodward, whom he married in 1958 (he had two daughters and one son with his first wife, Jacqueline Witte; his son died in 1978 of an accidental overdose of alcohol and valium). Woodward and Newman have three daughters, and he directed his wife to an Oscar nod in the film Rachel, Rachel. He famously told Playboy magazine he had no intentions to stray from the marriage.: "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?"
But no tribute is complete without mentioning his charitable contributions, including a camp for children with cancer and the company Newman's Own, which has donated more than $175 million as of last year. As former co-star Sally Field said upon learning of his death, "Sometimes God makes perfect people. And Paul Newman was one of them."
We leave you with Newman's closing arguments in The Verdict, one of his finest film performances ever. -- Ellen
A quintessential leading man in every sense of the word, Paul Newman was an actor, a director, a producer, a philanthropist, and one-half of Hollywood's longest double-star marriage. Now gone at the age of 83, we lose yet another one of film's icons. Newman had reportedly been battling cancer for years, but would only respond to inquiries with "[I'm] doing nicely."
His filmography is well known; his two partnerships with Robert Redford (in The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) defined "buddy movie"; the pair always hoped to reunite once more but never found the right project. He fit well into the role of antihero in films such as Cool Hand Luke, The Hustler, and Hud; the '70s and '80s saw him working with directors such as Martin Scorsese (The Color of Money, for which he won his only Oscar in addition to two honorary ones), Sydney Pollack (Absence of Malice), Sidney Lumet (The Verdict), and even the Coen Brothers (The Hudsucker Proxy).
In the last decade he took smaller roles, with his final on-screen appearance as the father of Daniel Craig in Road to Perdition. His last screen credit was voicing Doc, the cranky aging former champion racer in Disney's Cars, a natural fit for the racing enthusiast who competed as recently as last year.
The man with the famous ice-blue eyes got his start in theater, studying at the Actors Studio with Marlon Brando, James Dean and Karl Malden. Through the stage, he met actress Joanne Woodward, whom he married in 1958 (he had two daughters and one son with his first wife, Jacqueline Witte; his son died in 1978 of an accidental overdose of alcohol and valium). Woodward and Newman have three daughters, and he directed his wife to an Oscar in the film Rachel, Rachel. He famously told Playboy magazine he had no intentions to stray from the marriage. "I have steak at home, why go out for hamburger?"
But no tribute is complete without mentioning his charitable contributions, including a camp for children with cancer and the company Newman's Own, which has donated more than $175 million as of last year. As former co-star Sally Field said upon learning of his death, "Sometimes God makes perfect people. And Paul Newman was one of them."
We leave you with Newman's closing arguments in The Verdict, one of his finest film performances ever. -- Ellen
The polls are open! Please visit our Election '08 headquarters and vote for your favorite president on DVD. There are two brackets for real-life presidents and two for fictional ones, and a different set of voting every week. May the best President win! -- Ellen
We're getting ready to hold our own election here at Amazon, but there won't be any national conventions, mudslinging or even (gasp) hanging chads here. Nope, we're putting together our brackets for the ultimate showdown: Best President on DVD ever.
For our first bracket, portrayals of real-life presidents we need your help: Who would you nominate as a worthy candidate? The condition is the president has to have a major part of the movie or TV miniseries (no cameos or archive footage here). Here's our shortlist:
Michael Gambon as Lyndon B. Johnson in Path to War
Since we're focusing on movies that took place during the presidency, as opposed to before or after, the following were left off, but we could be talked into letting them back in: Henry Fonda as Abe Lincoln in Young Mr. Lincoln Nick Nolte as Thomas Jefferson in Jefferson in Paris Kenneth Branagh as Franklin D. Roosevelt in Warm Springs Tom Berenger as Teddy Roosevelt in Rough Riders
Give us your nominations; they may just make it to the final bracket. -- Ellen
What it is:
Heralded by audiences and critics alike, Sleeping Beauty was the final fairy tale to be produced by Walt Disney himself. When an enchanted kingdom and the most fair princess in the land fall
prey to the ultimate mistress of evil, the fate of the empire rests in
the hands of three small fairies and a courageous prince's magic kiss.
Their quest is fraught with peril as the fellowship must battle the
evil witch and a fire-breathing dragon if they are to set the Beauty
free.
Why It's Significant: Experience this groundbreaking film
restored beyond its original brilliance in the way Walt envisioned it
-- pristine, utterly breathtaking, and in High-Definition! Ok, so maybe Walt didn't know about Blu-ray ;).This
is one of Disney's first titles to feature BD Live
capabilties PLUS an extra bonus
standard definition DVD that is included so you can watch this classic
at home and in the mini-van. Disney is also releasing a two-disc
platinum edition available on DVD. --Angela
P.S. Did you know Sleeping Beauty's name was Aurora? You can learn more fun princess trivia in our Princess Store.
But there are many more examples of this--collections of a certain actor or director that seem to leave out obvious choices. Yeah, it doesn't make sense if you're just looking at it as a movie fan, but the short answer is that actor and directors make movies for a number of different studios, and those rights tend to stay with the studios when the DVD comes out. In old Hollywood, actors were under contract and made a lot of films for one studio, and some current actors still do establish and maintain relationships--Will Smith does a lot of movies for Sony/Columbia, for example. But more often than not, someone's body of work will end up split over numerous studios. That's why we've never seen a Terminator three-pack, because all three movies are owned by different studios and getting them together on something like that would be difficult. Just a few more examples of boxed sets that appear to be lacking:
Occasionally we get lucky. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made nine films for RKO and one for MGM, but since both libraries are owned by Warner, we can have Astaire & Rogers Ultimate Collector's Edition.
The Coen Brothers Movie Collection (MGM) doesn't include The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men,or O Brother, Where Art Thou?
How much do studios matter to you as a DVD buyer? It definitely makes a difference in combining titles like this, and the studios have different approaches in packaging, bonus features, and pricing. While I think a lot of moviegoers never thought much about studios, the emergence of DVD as a collectible has made many more people aware. We'll be discussing this topic again in the future. --David
Continuing our series of Essentials*, here's our Essential Sequels. Here's what our writer said:
Hollywood loves sequels. They are easier films to market and have an
already built-in audience. The downside: One can go to the well once
too often (Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in the Hood). But the upside
is when art and commerce are both gloriously served. These Essential
Sequels took great movies to the next level. Primal sagas were
expanded, and iconic characters more fully explored. In some cases,
thrill rides were upgraded to extreme entertainments. This genre often
gets a bad rap by critics who bemoan Hollywood's seeming lack of
original ideas. These classics give sequels a good name.
* "Essential" is not the same as "best," so these are not
top 10 lists, but more a library-building guide that samples the significant DVDs from a genre, a
decade, or a career.
Peter Bogdanovich, one of the most celebrated of the so-called New
Hollywood directors, was Old Hollywood at heart. A life-long film
devotee, he chronicled on index cards every f
A quintessential leading man in every sense of the word, Paul Newman was an actor, a director, a producer, a philanthropist, and one-half of Hollywood's longest double-star marriage. Now gone at the age of 83, we lose yet another one of film's icons. Newman had reportedly been battling cancer for years, but would only respond to inquiries with "[I'm] doing nicely."
