Breakdown

• DVD widescreen fomat

Tautly directed and superbly photographed, this crowd-pleasing thriller from 1997 is indebted to Steven Spielberg's Duel, but more closely resembles Dead Calm in its strengths and weaknesses. Kurt Russell plays a stressed-out husband whose wife (Kathleen Quinlan) disappears after their car breaks down in the desert. Tracking her whereabouts leads to an interstate theft and kidnapping ring, and as Russell pursues--and is pursued by--a vicious redneck played to perfection by J.T. Walsh (in one of his final film roles), the movie succumbs to several tense, but utterly conventional action sequences. That doesn't stop the movie from being an above-average nail-biter. It is so effectively directed by co-writer Jonathan Mostow that even the more surreal situations seem plausible and altogether unsettling. Russell's performance is key to the film's success--he's sma! rt enough to be admirable, and we can readily identify with his frustration, confusion, and torment. Through him, Breakdown takes on the edgy quality of a wide-awake nightmare. --Jeff Shannon

Motion Picture Masterpieces Collection (David Copperfield 1935 / Marie Antoinette 1938 / Pride and Prejudice 1940 / A Tale of Two Cities 1935 / Treasure Island 1934)

• MARIE ANTOINETTE The woman who was France! Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power headline an opulent saga of royalty and revolution.DAVID COPPERFIELD Based on the best-selling book by Charles Dickens. W.C. Fields is Micawber, and Freddie Bartholomew is young David in a splendid version of Dickens' most autobiographical work.A TALE OF TWO CITIES From the famed author Charles Dickens. "It was the best of t

Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a lifelong resident of the tiny, tradition-steeped Bronx enclave of City Island. A family man who makes his living as a corrections officer, Vince longs to become an actor. Ashamed to admit his aspirations to his family, Vince would rather let his fiery wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) believe his weekly poker games are a cover for an extramarital affair than admit he’s secretly taking acting classes in Manhattan. When Vince is asked to reveal his biggest secret in clas! s, he inadvertently sets off a chaotic chain of events that turns his mundane suburban life upside down. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, City Island spins a web of misrepresentations, misinterpretations and misunderstandings into a smart and charming comedy about a family that stops at nothing to avoid the truth.

City Island is chock-full of the simple pleasures to be gleaned from a warm, generous, and skillful script, performed with humor and charisma by a talented cast. Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia, Ocean's Eleven) is a prison guard--or "corrections officer," as he prefers--and has a family full of secrets: his son has some atypical desires and his daughter has been kicked out of school, while his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife) is powerfully attracted to the hunky young ex-con on parole that Vince has brought to stay with them. But Vince has some potent secrets of his own, including taking acting cla! sses. He tells Joyce he's playing poker, which leads her to be! lieve he 's having an affair--and when she meets his acting partner (Emily Mortimer, Lovely and Amazing), she thinks her fears are confirmed. This plot could easily have been melodramatic or sentimental, but thanks to the relaxed and confident guiding hand of writer-director Raymond De Felitta and the grounded, unfussy performances of the actors, City Island is engaging and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. --Bret FetzerVince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a lifelong resident of the tiny, tradition-steeped Bronx enclave of City Island. A family man who makes his living as a corrections officer, Vince longs to become an actor. Ashamed to admit his aspirations to his family, Vince would rather let his fiery wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies) believe his weekly poker games are a cover for an extramarital affair than admit he’s secretly taking acting classes in Manhattan. When Vince is asked to reveal his biggest secret in class, he inadvertently sets off a chaotic c! hain of events that turns his mundane suburban life upside down. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, City Island spins a web of misrepresentations, misinterpretations and misunderstandings into a smart and charming comedy about a family that stops at nothing to avoid the truth.

City Island is chock-full of the simple pleasures to be gleaned from a warm, generous, and skillful script, performed with humor and charisma by a talented cast. Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia, Ocean's Eleven) is a prison guard--or "corrections officer," as he prefers--and has a family full of secrets: his son has some atypical desires and his daughter has been kicked out of school, while his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife) is powerfully attracted to the hunky young ex-con on parole that Vince has brought to stay with them. But Vince has some potent secrets of his own, including taking acting classes. He tells Joyce he's playing poker,! which leads her to believe he's having an affair--and when sh! e meets his acting partner (Emily Mortimer, Lovely and Amazing), she thinks her fears are confirmed. This plot could easily have been melodramatic or sentimental, but thanks to the relaxed and confident guiding hand of writer-director Raymond De Felitta and the grounded, unfussy performances of the actors, City Island is engaging and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. --Bret FetzerStudio: Tcfhe/anchor Bay/starz Release Date: 09/20/2011 Rating: Pg13City Island is chock-full of the simple pleasures to be gleaned from a warm, generous, and skillful script, performed with humor and charisma by a talented cast. Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia, Ocean's Eleven) is a prison guard--or "corrections officer," as he prefers--and has a family full of secrets: his son has some atypical desires and his daughter has been kicked out of school, while his wife Joyce (Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife) is powerfully attracted to the hunky young ex-con on par! ole that Vince has brought to stay with them. But Vince has some potent secrets of his own, including taking acting classes. He tells Joyce he's playing poker, which leads her to believe he's having an affair--and when she meets his acting partner (Emily Mortimer, Lovely and Amazing), she thinks her fears are confirmed. This plot could easily have been melodramatic or sentimental, but thanks to the relaxed and confident guiding hand of writer-director Raymond De Felitta and the grounded, unfussy performances of the actors, City Island is engaging and thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. --Bret FetzerMARIE ANTOINETTE The woman who was France! Norma Shearer and Tyrone Power headline an opulent saga of royalty and revolution. DAVID COPPERFIELD Based on the best-selling book by Charles Dickens. W.C. Fields is Micawber, and Freddie Bartholomew is young David in a splendid version of Dickens' most autobiographical work. A TALE OF TWO CITIES From the fam! ed author Charles Dickens. "It was the best of times, it was t! he worst of times." Ronald Colman stars in the lavish story of the French Revolution...and one man's redemption. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Based on the best-selling book by Jane Austen. Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier) sets maiden hearts aflutter - except for that of unimpressed Elizabeth Bennett (Greer Garson). Austen's masterwork! TREASURE ISLAND Based on the unforgettable book of the same title by Robert Louis Stevenson. Avast, me hearties, for the swashbuckler about a boy with a treasure map - and a pirate (Long John Silver) with a scheme. The Champ's Wallace Beery and Jackie Cooper reunite!For an accurate look at how things were at MGM in the glory days, go directly to Motion Picture Masterpieces, a DVD box with five literary-minded A-list productions. MGM liked to think of itself as the studio of class, and its highbrow aspirations (mixed with plenty of old-fashioned hokum) are on lavish display in this collection.

Louis B. Mayer ran the studio, and boy wonder Irving Thalberg! supervised production. However, another strong-willed producer, future Gone with the Wind CEO David O. Selznick, was responsible for guiding a pair of highly enjoyable Dickens adaptations, both released in 1935. David Copperfield is a wonderful condensation of the sprawling novel, crammed with memorable evocations of Dickens' roster of eccentrics. Freddie Bartholomew, who became a star with this role, plays the young David; equally indelible are W.C. Fields as Mr. Micawber, Basil Rathbone as Murdstone, and especially Edna May Oliver as Besty Trotwood. Director George Cukor's empathy and craftsmanship keep the movie humming with Dickensian wit. A Tale of Two Cities followed shortly thereafter, with Ronald Colman in one of his signature roles as the drunken romantic Sydney Carton, whose throttled love for the beautiful Lucie Manette leads to the French Revolution's guillotine. Jack Conway directs in tight, brisk fashion, and once again the supporting cas! t (Oliver and Rathbone return from Copperfield) is flav! orful. < p> The French Revolution also figures in the rather preposterous Marie Antoinette (1938), an eye-popping production about the bride of Louis XVI. The project was a pet of Thalberg and his wife Norma Shearer, and MGM proceeded with the overstuffed production even after Thalberg's early death. Marie gets an extramarital affair (with the young Tyrone Power) and an incredible parade of gowns and wigs, but not too much blame for the peasants starving. Robert Morley steals the show as Louis XVI, with John Barrymore in rascally form as his grandfather. Shearer's ordinariness somehow fits her out-of-it character.

Treasure Island (1934) casts Jackie Cooper as young Jim Hawkins and Wallace Beery as that one-legged seadog, Long John Silver (the pair had scored a huge hit in The Champ three years earlier). This is a lot of people's favorite adaptation of the marvelous Robert Louis Stevenson novel, and Victor Fleming's manly directing approach manages to take s! ome of the sheen off the MGM house style (by the way, art director Cedric Gibbons, credited on all these films, is one of the stars of the box set).

Pride and Prejudice (1940) is a respectable take on Jane Austen's oft-filmed novel, with Greer Garson as the headstrong Elizabeth Bennet and Laurence Olivier as the difficult Mr. Darcy. MGM liked to corset Garson in fine-lady roles, but here she lets some of Elizabeth's sauciness come through; actually, Olivier's elaborate performance is the movie's too-theatrical weak spot. But boy, does this movie tell a good story--and that's rather the point of these (Marie excepted) solid literary adaptations. --Robert Horton

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Good Dick

• GOOD DICK (DVD MOVIE)

An eccentric and troubled young woman spends her days watching porn in the claustrophobic world of her apartment. An eccentric and troubled young man spends his days cataloguing films and serving her in a claustrophobic video store, before spending his nights sleeping in his car. The harder he tries to give himself to her the more she pushes him away. The farther away he goes, the closer she needs him to be. This impossible situation escalates and threatens to become combustible, just as it starts to become calm.

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Friday, December 30, 2011

Jackie Chan's First Strike

• 1999 - New Line - DVD - Jackie Chan's First Strike
• Jackie Chan, Jackson Lou, Chen Chun Wu
• PG-13 - Widescreen & Standard Versions
• 85 Minutes - Bonus Features - Multiple Languages
• Collectible

Reach fell, and when hope seemed lost, humanity stood face-to-face with the possible extinction of all life in the galaxy and lived to tell the tale.

But that was just one epic battle, and the war rages on . . .

The Covenant shows no mercy as they continue to assault every human world they can find, but in their way lies humanity’s great champion, Spartan-117, the Master Chief.  Together with his AI companion Cortana and the last remaining Spartans, the fight continues on two fronts.

One takes a crew of Spartans to the charred surface of Reach, the only planet they’ve ever known as home.  But beneath the surface, Dr. Halse! y has discovered an ancient secret…one that could alter the course of the war.  

Meanwhile, Master Chief and Cortana head towards a gathering of Covenant warships because the UNSC’s worst nightmare has come true:  the Covenant has discovered the location of Earth and is forming a massive fleet to destroy it…and all who oppose the will of the Prophets.  

In post-soviet Russia nothing is as it seems. When members of the Russian mafia pose as KGB agents to steal a nuclear missile the CIA calls on martial arts master Jackie Chan to stop them. Jackie treks the globe from the icy glaciers of the Ukraine to the pristine beaches of Australia. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2004 Starring: Jackie Chan Jackson Lou Run time: 85 minutes Rating: PG13 Director: Stanley TongAction-god Jackie Chan does his best James Bond impression with this ecstatic sequel to the classic Supercop. The bare-bones plot has Chan in pursuit of inter! national terrorists, but the narrative quickly gives way to an! unceasi ng barrage of insane stunt work (including a nitro-fueled ski chase and a grandiose fight scene set inside a functioning shark tank). As with most of the aging star's recent films, there is more of an emphasis placed on big, impersonal (albeit impressive) stunts rather than the close-up combat that made him famous; but the end result is still a must-see rush for longtime fans, and a great introduction for newcomers eager to see what all the well-deserved fuss is about. The scene where Jackie takes on multiple goons while armed only with a ladder is one of his most jaw-dropping set pieces ever--and that's saying quite a lot. Be sure to stick around for the closing credits of gags gone awry, which graphically prove that Chan is truly the hardest working man in show business. --Andrew Wright

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Levis Men's Faux Leather Aviator Bomber, Brown, Large

• Sherpa lined
• Rugged-look

Faux leather aviator bomber

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Brotherhood of the Wolf (The Runelords, Book Two)

• ISBN13: 9780812570694
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

Volume Two of The Runelords

Raj Ahtan, ruler of Indhopal, has used enough forcibles to transform himself into the ultimate warrior: The Sum of All Men. Ahtan seeks to bring all of humanity under his rule-destroying anything and anyone that stood in his path, including many friends and allies of young Prince Gaborn Val Orden. But Gaborn has fulfilled a two-thousand-year-old prophecy, becoming the Earth King-a mythic figure who can unleash the forces of the Earth itself.

And now the struggle continues. Gaborn has managed to drive off Raj Ahtan, but Ahtan is far from defeated. Striking at far-flung cities and fortresses and killing dedicates, Ahtan seeks to draw out the Earth Ki! ng from his seat of power, to crush him. But as they weaken each other's forces in battle, the armies of an ancient and implacable inhuman enemy issue forth from the very bowels of the Earth.

David Farland's "Runelords" fantasy sequence began in 1998 with The Sum of All Men, a career-relaunch novel whose sales far outstripped earlier SF published under his real name Dave Wolverton. Runelords are supermen whose strength, stamina, and vision, and other physical abilities are multiplied by magical "endowments" transferred from unfortunate donors who are crippled by their loss: the archvillain in the story is virtually invincible thanks to tens of thousands of endowments.

This second book avoids middle-volume doldrums by introducing a vast onslaught of still tougher and memorably unpleasant nonhumans who even the villains must oppose. Meanwhile, various characters skirmish on different parts of the map, and the hero struggles with unreliable power! s conferred on him when he was chosen as Earth King to save t! he land and humanity--or maybe only a tiny part of each.

Farland maintains a steady flow of new situations, reversals, gambits, and surprises ... it's a real shock when one chap who has incurred a dreadful penalty for virtuous reasons is not spared (as expected in the normal chivalry of fantasyland) but rather pays the full, eye-watering price. One small criticism: the writing contains occasional sloppiness and repetition. Nonetheless, this is a rousing, painfully gripping story. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

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Dust Tactics Revised Core Set

• A brand new core set for dust tactics
• Features the new point system
• Includes all new, never-before-released miniatures exclusive to this core set
• Features two double-sided terrain posters (each the size of six terrain tiles)
• Includes the ?Victory Bridge? scenario book

A hungry alien substance has traveled to Earth following a doomed Lunar mission, and it's consuming everything it touches, leaving behind drifts of gray death. No life form stands a chance, but Clyde Jackson is tougher than most. He's seen war and he's been in plenty of foxholes. Now he's living through the end of the world one day at a time in a panic room that has become his only refuge. It's only a matter of time before the ventilation fails, and it'll only take a single gray speck to end it all...

Originally featured in The Absent Willow Review e-zine, DUST is the haunting meditati! on of a man recalling the final days of a once mighty and hopeful planet now quickly eroding to nothing under drifts of gray.A hungry alien substance has traveled to Earth following a doomed Lunar mission, and it's consuming everything it touches, leaving behind drifts of gray death. No life form stands a chance, but Clyde Jackson is tougher than most. He's seen war and he's been in plenty of foxholes. Now he's living through the end of the world one day at a time in a panic room that has become his only refuge. It's only a matter of time before the ventilation fails, and it'll only take a single gray speck to end it all...

Originally featured in The Absent Willow Review e-zine, DUST is the haunting meditation of a man recalling the final days of a once mighty and hopeful planet now quickly eroding to nothing under drifts of gray.The hard got harder and the heavy got heavier on Dust's 1972 LP, a sought-after prize among collectors of American metal. Singer/guitarist! Richie Wise and band manager/lyricist Kenny Kerner would prod! uce Kiss ' first two albums two years later, and you can hear early echoes of that here; includes Pull Away/So Many Times; Ivory; How Many Horses , and more!*Winner of the $15,000 Governor General’s Award
*Winner of the Mr. Christie's Award
*An American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
*Nominated for an Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America)

For fans of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury...

Imagine a depression-era town where it hasn’t rained for years. A pale rainmaker with other-worldly eyes brings rain to the countryside and mesmerizes the townspeople, but the children begin to disappear one by one. Only young Robert Steelgate is able to resist the rainmaker’s spell and begin the struggle to discover what has happened to his missing brother and the other children.

"Read the riveting first chapter of Dust and you're already past the point of no return. Arthur Slade writes with the art and grace of a hypnotist, and yo! u won't be able to put this book down. It's sensational!" Kenneth Oppel, New York Times bestselling author of AIRBORN and SKYBREAKER.

About the Author:
Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan and began writing at an early age. He has been writing fiction full time for fifteen years and is the author of sixteen bestselling books, including the "Northern Frights" series, "Jolted," and "The Hunchback Assignments." He lives in the magical city of Saskatoon, Canada.*Winner of the $15,000 Governor General’s Award
*Winner of the Mr. Christie's Award
*An American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
*Nominated for an Edgar Award (Mystery Writers of America)

For fans of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury...

Imagine a depression-era town where it hasn’t rained for years. A pale rainmaker with other-worldly eyes brings rain to the countryside and mesmerizes the townspeople, but the children begi! n to disappear one by one. Only young Robert Steelgate is able! to resi st the rainmaker’s spell and begin the struggle to discover what has happened to his missing brother and the other children.

"Read the riveting first chapter of Dust and you're already past the point of no return. Arthur Slade writes with the art and grace of a hypnotist, and you won't be able to put this book down. It's sensational!" Kenneth Oppel, New York Times bestselling author of AIRBORN and SKYBREAKER.

About the Author:
Arthur Slade was raised on a ranch in the Cypress Hills of southwest Saskatchewan and began writing at an early age. He has been writing fiction full time for fifteen years and is the author of sixteen bestselling books, including the "Northern Frights" series, "Jolted," and "The Hunchback Assignments." He lives in the magical city of Saskatoon, Canada.CD reissue of the debut album from the American Rockers, a mixture of British-influenced Hard Rock and Prog. The album was originally released on the Kama Sutra label in 1971, introdu! cing a group of young players to the world at large, most of whom would move on to bigger things. The rhythm section featured drummer Marc Bell, who would later join New York Punkers Richard Hell & The Voidoids, while bassist Kenny Aaronson would join labelmates Stories by their third album. The songwriting team of producer Kenny Kerner and singer/guitarist Richie Wise would go on to produce the third Stories album. Seven tracks. Repertoire.SEVEN-YEAR-OLD MATTHEW DISAPPEARS one day on a walk into Horshoe, a dust bowl farm town in Depression-era Saskatchewan. Other children go missing just as a strange man named Abram Harsich appears in town. He dazzles the townspeople with the promises of a rainmaking machine. Only Matthew’s older brother Robert seems to be able to resist Abram’s spell, and to discover what happened to Matthew and the others.

“A remarkably effective sense of atmosphere.”â€"Kirkus Reviews, Starred

“Choose it for science-fiction! fans who are ready for something a little different.”â€"! School L ibrary Journal, Starred

“Beautifully written novel . . . strong character development, an authentic setting, and some genuinely spooky moments.”â€"VOYA, Starred

A Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature

An ALA Best Books for Young Adults


From the Hardcover edition.On a broken ship orbiting a doomed sun, dwellers have grown complacent with their aging metal world. But when a serving girl frees a captive noblewoman, the old order is about to change....

Ariane, Princess of the House of Rule, was known to be fiercely cold-blooded. But severing an angel’s wings on the battlefieldâ€"even after she had surrenderedâ€"proved her completely without honor. Captive, the angel Perceval waits for Ariane not only to finish her offâ€"but to devour her very memories and mind. Surely her gruesome death will cause war between the housesâ€"exactly as Ariane desires. But Ariane’s plan may yet be ! opposed, for Perceval at once recognizes the young servant charged with her care.

Rien is the lost child: her sister. Soon they will escape, hoping to stop the impending war and save both their houses. But it is a perilous journey through the crumbling hulk of a dying ship, and they do not pass unnoticed. Because at the hub of their turning world waits Jacob Dust, all that remains of God, following the vapor wisp of the angel. And he knows they will meet very soon.

Nine years ago, Jessie was in a car crash and died. After she was buried, she awoke and tore through the earth to arise, reborn, as a zombie. And there were others-gangs of undead roaming the Indiana woods, fighting, hunting, hidden. But when a mysterious illness threatens the existence of both zombies and humans, Jessie must decide whether to stay and fight or flee to survive...

Joan Frances Turner on Dust

It started with George Romero, but then it almost always does. Friday night, October sometime in the mid-1990s, and the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead was the only thing on television. I'd never seen it and had no particular interest in zombies, but the only alternative was my contracts law textbook so why not? And from the moment poor doomed Johnny solemnly intoned "They're coming to get you, Bar-buh-rah!", the movie had me, and it kept me, and the ending was a punch in the gut. The grainy black and white, the clumsy acting, the slapdash storyline and foolish self-destructive characters and almost nonexistent special effects weren't deterrents, they were the whole point. It all looked like ancient footage from some amateur documentary, and real people act foolish at the worst possible times. I never saw the remake, or any of the sequels: It wasn'! t the idea of zombies, themselves, that had me, it was that particular story. I didn't seek out any other.

Flash forward to 2003, and Carnival of Souls. More cheap black and white, shot on a shoestring in the middle of nowhere, and when Mary Henry's hand emerged from the depths of a Kansas lake long after she should have drowned they had me, again. Were those technically zombies, though, or were they ghosts? It had to be the former, for no ghost appears in the flesh as she did, walks among the living almost but not quite one of them, inspires their unwitting yet visceral disgust: They could, so to speak, smell the decay all inside her. That fascinated me, as did the titular carnival at the Saltair Pavilion. Zombies like to dance, it turns out, to eerie, calliope-style music that seems to come from nowhere. Interesting.

What George Romero started Herk Harvey finished, and I couldn't get zombies, themselves, out of my mind. They! were ubiquitous, actually, when you started paying attention,! but the more I learned about zombies and the popular imagination the duller and less satisfying it all was. Zombies, it turned out, were nothing but a joke. Talk funny. Walk funny. Ugly. Smelly. Filthy. Can't speak English right. Eat disgusting food. Spread disease. Mentally inferior. Lights on, nobody's home. They'll steal and devour everything you hold dear, including yourself. Shoot them. Kill them. Cleanse the earth of their kind. It's a moral imperative.

I was urged at every step, in this particular mythology, to ally myself with The Good Guy, the clean upright English-speaking human alpha male and his ragtag gun-toting buddies who were making the world safe for the One True Species, one bullet-riddled skull at a time. The hell with that. Zombies--actually, Jessie's absolutely right, let's dispense with that misappropriated West African word--the undead are nothing but people who died. Your mother, "Good" Guy, your spouse, your sibling, you! r child, your friend, your neighbor, you yourself, and what if you only think they're all monsters? What if dead people still have minds of their own, can laugh and fight and form friendships and love each other and grieve--and kill, as you do, for malice and sport as much as from hunger? What if the moans and groans you hear are an actual language? What if the undead have a "life" span, slowly aging and decaying and crumbling into dust just as inert bodies do in the coffin? What if the creature in your crosshairs still remembers you, loves you, can't plead for what you once were to each other before you pull the trigger?

(For that matter, what if your incredibly tedious guns don't even do the job? That's the first determination I made when I sat down to write Dust, that there would be no Deus Ex Firearms whatsoever. Fire itself, that'd work to kill them, but then fire has the disadvantage of spreading like, well, wildfire. As does bio-weapo! nry, but then we're getting ahead of ourselves.) If Dust could be summed up in one sentence, it would be a lyric from Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: "The history of the world, my sweet, is who gets eaten and who gets to eat." It presupposes a world where the living dead are not some new aberration but have existed alongside the humans they once were for thousands of years, an uneasy harmony occasionally broken up by unfortunate incidents such as, say, the famous Pittsburgh Massacre of '68. Other elements came into play: the Greek myth of Erysichthon, which haunted me since I first read it as a child, about a man the gods punish for his hubris with a hunger so insatiable he ultimately devours...himself. Luc Sante's beautiful, unsentimental prose poem "The Unknown Soldier," in which the forgotten dead assert their right to speak for themselves. The eerie photographs and morbid newspaper clippings from Michael Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip. The unsettling banjo music in the end credits of the cult horror film The L! ast Broadcast, which inspired the notion that the undead express their strongest emotions through telepathic music: "brain radios." That and eerie waltzes in Carnival of Souls inspired the spontaneous psychic dances, the only moments of true peace and harmony the undead ever enjoy.

Eating, in this world, is identity: The living eat dead meat. The dead eat meat so recently living that it's still warm and pulsing with life. The dead find the living's dietary habits as abominable, disgusting, taboo as the reverse. Every human alive, in our world as well as theirs, pins a far greater part of their self-image than they realize on what goes into their mouths. It was a joke then that Jessie, the fervent vegan in life, began a ravenous flesh-hunter in death, and yet it was also entirely to be expected.

Armed with the facts--such as they were--in September 2003 I jotted down a sparse page of disjointed notes: character names, story l! ocales (the Calumet Region of northwest Indiana, besides being! my easi ly accessible home geography, was both underserved in fiction and had enough urban-suburban-rural-industrial variety to make it interesting), a little folkloric rhyme the undead liked to sing amongst themselves but never made it into the book. The slang--"hoo" for humans, "rotter" and "feeder" and "bloater" and " 'maldie" for each other--also came early because it was fun to think up. Jessie simply walked in right at the start and announced herself, an angry, lonely girl abused in life, abandoned in death, yearning for love and acceptance but furious at the world. It was inevitable she'd take instantly to the jarring, aggressive, insatiably hungry culture of the undead, also inevitable that she'd write off her human family entirely only to have them return to be her undoing. Joe started as a parody, one of those "teen angel" hoods-with-a-heart-of-gold from the fifties pop songs who dies in a drag race gone wrong, and then he surprised me by showing himself as lonely and ! yearning as Jessie, if not more so, under the brutal surface. It was inevitable, again, that they'd both fall in love. Florian, a literal walking skeleton, was always meant to be the paterfamilias of Jessie's surrogate family, but I never expected him to turn out gentle, genuinely wise, the only true parent she ever really had.

Actually they all surprised me, as I worked little by little on draft one, draft two, draft three through 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Renee, the lamb thrown into a pit of snarling wolves, grew up amazingly fast and became not just Jessie's friend, but her ally. Linc--only kindhearted from Jessie's perspective, no human would want to run into him--was supposed to be merely Joe's foil, the "geek" to his "jock," but then quietly, stubbornly, relentlessly worked his way up from the margins of the story to the center. Teresa, the gang leader, was even more selfish and cruel that I'd imagined. (The rival gang the Rat Patrol were exac! tly as selfish and cruel as I'd imagined, so at least I ha! d some c ontrol over the proceedings.) Lisa, Jessie's neurotic mess of a human sister, proved she could be there for Jessie in death as she never was in life. Jim, her brother, began as the most cardboard sort of villain, missing only a mustache to twirl, then I remembered that the truest antagonists are those who genuinely believe they're acting out of kindness and love. Only when Jim tried to "save" Jessie, did it become clear how much he--like all Good Guys--utterly feared and despised what she'd become. Death him/her/itself, the trickster, the demon, the angel, the destroyer, the salvager, was there from the beginning, though he didn't announce himself right away to me any more than to Jessie: Like any trusting parent, he first and foremost wanted to let his undead children try and fend for themselves.

Since the first inspiration for Dust was a pair of B-movies, other midnight drive-in fixtures seemed entirely appropriate: The meteor that causes extraterr! estrial chaos upon landing. The semi-secret laboratory with "noble" purpose gone horribly wrong. The pandemic plague--but why just consider what would happen if the living became undead, why not consider what might happen if the undead were brought back to life? Untouchable life, even? What if Death the trickster, in his eagerness to consume the earth, thus ultimately ended up tricking himself?

It's all well and good to talk about Herk Harvey and banjos and falling meteors, but what truly inspired Dust was of course my own fear of death. There's another song, by the musician Exuma, that embodies it: "You won't go to heaven, you won't go to hell/You'll remain in your graves with the stench and the smell." What if the "afterlife" took place right on earth, and you rotted slowly, inexorably, feeling the first bugs nest and hatch on your body? What if you actually had to watch your loved ones grieving you, as Jessie and Renee both did, a! nd be yards away and yet an eternity removed, unable now to be! anythin g to them but a monster? What if pain, fear, longing, grief, the hungers of the body don't stop when life stops? What if Death isn't an angel of mercy, but a real live son of a bitch?

As it turns out, then, for me as for everyone else the undead were an embodiment of fear. But they surprised me, yet again, by becoming embodiments of hope as well. Life doesn't end after death, not really. To become something new, alien, unimagined, is not to lose oneself, one's identity and thoughts and needs and wants, they just express themselves a little differently. Nobody's lost to anyone forever; if there is no afterlife, there is at least the "eternity" of memory. To lose one family is to gain another. Betrayal by loved ones can lead to new, stronger bonds that are about real trust. Nearly everyone's stronger and more capable than they imagine, when put to the test. Flesh is just flesh and if it rots, well, that's only natural.

But that's all ! very Hallmark Hall of Fame and ultimately it was also about having some fun whistling in the graveyard. Dust was a chance to play with all sorts of notions of life and death: ordinary mortal existence, living consciousness trapped in dead decaying bodies, seemingly "live" flesh rotting and dying from the inside out, invulnerable immortality through the back door. As Jessie says, "How many kinds of living and dead and living dead and dead living had I been in just these few months, these few days, after the stasis of plain old human living and dying? I deserved some kind of existential medal." Tell me about it, it was hard to keep up. It also felt like finding the pulse of something real, and true, about life and death under all the campiness of traditional zombie mythology. Both the B-movie folklore and the insomniac anxieties inspired the book in equal measure, and both deserve their due. It starts with a silly story, some actors shuffling around si! deways in worn-out clothes, and ends with real people, real fe! ars, rea l hopes. But then, it almost always does.

--Joan Frances Turner

FFGDT022 Core Set Revised Dust Tactics by Fantasy Flight Games

Get ready to fight the war anew. The Dust Tactics Revised Core Set is the perfect introduction for new players or a great expansion for veterans. It includes all new, never-before-released miniatures exclusive to this Core Set, an updated and comprehensive rulebook, the Victory Bridge scenario book, six custom dice, two double-sided terrain posters (each the size of six terrain tiles), 10 unit cards, nine double-sided hazard squares, two ammo-crates, and two antitank traps.

The Allies are ready to lay waste to their Axis foes with their new forces. Meanwhile, the Blutkreuz Korps refuse to be bested on any field of battle. Their new Axis troops are equally powerful. With astonishing abilities and firepower, it will be a struggle deciding which side you want to fight for.

The incl! uded terrain posters unique to the Revised Core Set introduce Dust Tactics players to new terrain elements featured in the Victory Bridge scenario book. These terrain posters are a new warfare experience due to the new environment they offer players - a bridge and building structures, as well as new terrain symbols. The Victory Bridge scenario book offers players six never-before-seen scenarios with which they can carry out a campaign. Englands Cobden Bridge has suddenly become the strategic location for gaining access to Southampton. Can your faction take control of the bridge, and gain the advantage of advancing into southern England.

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Goody Simple Styles Modern Updo Maker

• Simple styles modern updo help helps create a 1/2 for full frech twist
• No need for additional pins or clips
• For all hair types
• Assorted colors, dark and light
• 1 Piece count

Goody Simple Styles is a line of easy to use hair accessories that allow women to create trend-right looks at home, on their own.

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Friday, December 16, 2011

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

• In this hilarious, critically acclaimed arcade showdown, a humble novice goes head-to-head against the reigning Donkey Kong champ in a confrontation that rocks the gaming world to its processors! For over 20 years, Billy Mitchell has owned the throne of the Donkey Kong world. No one could beat his top score until now. Newcomer Steve Wiebe claims to have beaten the unbeatable, but Mitchell isn't re

AMERICAN MOVIE - DVD MovieStruggling filmmaker Mark Borchardt is the subject of American Movie, and he may also be the most determined man you'll ever meet. The straggly haired, fast-talking, Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, native lists his greatest influences as Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He began making horror movies as a gangly adolescent, and is now set on finishing Coven (which he pronounces like "woven"), the "35-! minute direct market thriller" he has worked on for two years. In the process, he steadfastly battles immense debt, the threat of losing his kids, and birds chirping gleefully through scenes set in the dead of winter. His mother would rather do her shopping than be an extra, his brother contends he's best suited for factory work, and his father just wants him to "watch the language."

Standing by him through it all is Mark's childhood buddy, Mike Schank, who is the strongest weapon against drug use a task force could ever hope for, and Uncle Bill, begrudging financier of Coven, who appears to be wasting away before our very eyes. In less perceptive hands these two could easily become caricatures--the burnt-out stoner and the crotchety old coot--but through director Chris Smith's lens we see why Mark loves them, why they love Mark, and why each of these stories is uniquely compelling.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the film h! as been compared to Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffm! an-- two unquestionably hilarious mock-documentaries--and, indeed, American Movie has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. But in the spoofs, we feel encouraged to point and giggle at the poor slobs trying to get a piece of the action. Smith, however, offers us a funny and overwhelmingly affectionate portrait; you may sit down expecting to laugh at Mark's pie-in-the-sky hopes, but you soon find yourself bursting with admiration. "The American dream stays with me each and every day," Mark says, and by the end, we want nothing more than for it to come true. (The DVD version includes the complete short film "Coven.") --Brangien Davis This limited edition, special collectors' DVD set celebrates 25 years of the Sundance Institute. It contains ten ground-breaking films that embody the sprit of independence, creative risk-taking, and diversity that define the Sundance Film Festival. Bonus materials include a booklet and an 11th disc with behind-the-scenes footage from the Sun! dance Institute Labs and never-before-seen interviews with filmmakers and founder Robert Redford.In this hilarious, critically acclaimed arcade showdown, a humble novice goes head-to-head against the reigning Donkey Kong champ in a confrontation that rocks the gaming world to its processors! For over 20 years, Billy Mitchell has owned the throne of the Donkey Kong world. No one could beat his top score until now. Newcomer Steve Wiebe claims to have beaten the unbeatable, but Mitchell isn't ready to renquish his crown without a fight. Go behind the barrels as the two battle it out in a vicious war to earn the title of the true King of Kong. The stuff of gladiatorial battle is here: good versus evil, right versus wrong, nerd versus... super-nerd? At any rate, it's a more entertaining showdown than most fictional movies can muster. The King of Kong is the saga of Steve Wiebe, a Redmond, Washington dweeb who sets a new record in the video game Donkey Kong, only t! o see his accomplishment challenged by the grand poobahs of th! e gaming establishment. And if you don't know how pernickety the grand poobahs of the gaming establishment can be, well, one of the pleasures of this movie is finding out about this collection of oddballs. It seems Wiebe has toppled a score that has stood since 1982, when eminent "Gamer of the Century" Billy Mitchell set it, and Mitchell isn't too happy about being overthrown. A black-mulleted showboat, Mitchell provides the perfect counterpoint to Wiebe's mild-mannered family man, and the smaller fish around him are no less colorful. This is one of those movies you watch in delighted disbelief, marveling that such people exist--and that they gladly allowed themselves to be filmed. Director Seth Gordon does an important thing in presenting this world of eccentrics: he doesn't mock them, or provide editorial nudging; he simply lets them be. The result is an ingratiating classic. --Robert Horton

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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

IIT 62135 Assorted Jumbo Screwdrivers - 4 Piece Set

• Magnetic tipped
• Chrome vanadium steel shafts for maximum strength and durability
• Comfortable cushioned grip
• Includes (4) assorted screwdrivers

Deluxe six 45 RPM 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Garage, Inc. features covers of music by artists such as Black Sabbath, Bob Seger, Nick Cave, Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Motorhead, Queen and more! Included are recorded cover songs, all of their B-side covers released up to 1998, and the entire The $5.98 E.P.: Garage Days Re-Revisited, which had gone out of print since its original release in 1987.This double-disc, all-covers release could come to represent a vital turning point for Metallica. While disc 2 is a straightforward collection of every cover the group have recorded in its 16-year history, disc 1 comprises 11 new selections drawn from the oeuvres of such exciting and diverse artists as U.K. punks Discharge and nefarious Aust! ralian Nick Cave. The heavier songs, such as the Mercyful Fate medley, Black Sabbath's "Sabbra Cadabra," and the Misfits' "Die Die My Darling," prove that nobody delivers a crunching riff better than these metal veterans. But it is vocalist-guitarist James Hetfields's confident approach toward the likes of Cave's "Loverman" and Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" that delivers the most electricity; here his raw, heartfelt vocals are largely untouched. Given that the recharged group spent only three weeks in the studio recording these tracks, it appears that these guys have remembered the value of studio spontaneity over laborious pontificating. Hopefully, that mindset will resurface in future projects. --Steffan ChiraziFrom the director of the ground-breaking film I, Robot comes this hip, sexy comedy about a garage band with everything it takes to make it to the top?except talent. Waiting for their big break, a group of young rockers and their clueless manager can't keep the! ir heads on straight -- or their hands off each other. Loaded ! with sex , drugs and rock-n-roll, GARAGE DAYS proves you don?t have to be a rock star to party like one!Alex Proyas, director of sci-fi dramas Dark City and I, Robot, took a detour toward a modified retro-'60s, upbeat rock & roll comedy with 2002's lightly engaging Garage Days. Set in a Sydney, Australia suburb, the film is a quirky variation on the story of a misfit band trying to get a break with successful managers, clubs, recording studios, lovers, etc. Singer-guitarist Freddy (Kick Gurry) desperately maneuvers his group toward stardom, but his bandmates' internal struggles and the capriciousness of a powerful record executive (Marton Csokas) prove major stumbling blocks. So, too, is Freddy's deepening attraction to Kate (Maya Stange), girlfriend of his lead guitarist Joe (Brett Stiller), who in turn may be having a nervous breakdown via a dangerous side romance with a suicidal beauty (Yvette Duncan). Proyas enjoys his patches of darkness in Garage Days, but for the most part he's making his own, devil-may-care A Hard Day's Night. --Tom KeoghOur house was very popular last Saturday. There were cars parked along the street, while people of different ages enjoyed summer weather in our driveway and front yard. But except for moments I'd steal a glance from behind the living room curtains, I never saw anyone or had a conversation. I was under house arrest, which is what happens to many husbands when their wives have a garage sale...

"Garage Sale Godfather" is one of twenty articles from the book, "Father's Days... And Nights: Humorous Tales from the Frontlines of Fatherhood" by award winning humor columnist and author Dave Schwensen. Inspired by his family role as instigator and observer, his adventures with sons six year old Dangerous Paul, thirteen year old Chaos Kevin, and wife Debutant Deb will have dads, moms, sons, daughters and everyone who loves family humor laughing out loud.

When! asked about his children, every dad worth his weight in fathe! rhood ha s stories. The best are like this one: entertaining, funny and full of love.Our house was very popular last Saturday. There were cars parked along the street, while people of different ages enjoyed summer weather in our driveway and front yard. But except for moments I'd steal a glance from behind the living room curtains, I never saw anyone or had a conversation. I was under house arrest, which is what happens to many husbands when their wives have a garage sale...

"Garage Sale Godfather" is one of twenty articles from the book, "Father's Days... And Nights: Humorous Tales from the Frontlines of Fatherhood" by award winning humor columnist and author Dave Schwensen. Inspired by his family role as instigator and observer, his adventures with sons six year old Dangerous Paul, thirteen year old Chaos Kevin, and wife Debutant Deb will have dads, moms, sons, daughters and everyone who loves family humor laughing out loud.

When asked about his children, every dad wo! rth his weight in fatherhood has stories. The best are like this one: entertaining, funny and full of love.A tool-lovers dream, this great 4-pack of assorted screwdrivers gives you a wide variety to fill your toolbox with. Each one is constructed from a chrome vanadium steel shaft for maximum strength and durability and features a magnetic tip with a comfortable cushioned grip. These are truly assorted- each of the three packages are different and contains an assortment of screwdriver types and sizes. Package includes (4) assorted screwdrivers.

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A Miser Brothers' Christmas (Deluxe Edition)

• Those two feuding sons of Mother Nature that we all grew up loving, Heat Miser and Snow Miser, are back with their very own special Christmas story -- A MISER BROTHERS' CHRISTMAS. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN Rating: NR Age: 883929081707 UPC: 883929081707 Manufacturer No: 1000103426

Critically acclaimed drama that invokes the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance. As an elderly man, poet Bruce Nugent meets a young black gay artist struggling to find his voice and together they embark on a surreal narrative journey through his inspiring past.

DVD Bonus Features:
Separate commentaries by Director Rodney Evans and lead actor Anthony Mackie
Behind the Scenes: Interview with the Director Rodney
Evans
Deleted Scenes
Theatrical Trailer
Chapter Stops . .
Letterbox 1: 1.85
Closed Caption
Dolby 2.0 StereoLimited Edition Japanese pressing of this alb! um comes housed in a miniature LP sleeve. 2006.Based on the bestselling book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big To Fail offers an intimate look at the epochal financial crisis of 2008 and the powerful men and women who decided the fate of the world’s economy in a matter of a few weeks. Centering on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the film goes behind closed doors to examine the symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and Washington.Anyone with a significant amount of money invested in the U.S. financial markets might want to consider other strategies after seeing Too Big to Fail, a meticulously detailed account of the months in 2008 when not only America's economy but the whole world's was on the brink of an apocalyptic meltdown. Made for HBO, director Curtis Hanson's film boasts one of the more impressive casts in recent memory (William Hurt, James Woods, Paul Giamatti, Billy Crudup, Edward Asner, Topher Grace, Matthew Modine, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhou! b, Cynthia Nixon… the list is long and star studded), with H! urt espe cially effective as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the central figure here. Having already presided over the collapse and sale of the investment banking giant Bear Stearns, Paulson was faced with a similar crisis when Lehman Brothers, another investment banker, saw its stock price tumble and its clients depart in droves--the result of the lack of government regulation and the purchase of new homes by many people who could not in fact afford them, among other factors. Paulson's attempts to oversee a private sale of the over-leveraged company failed, leading Lehman to bankruptcy; others, like American International Group (AIG), would soon have followed had not the government intervened with an 11th-hour bailout. The movie presents a great deal of information and an enormous amount of data, but Hanson and screenwriter Peter Gould (working from Andrew Ross Sorkin's book), while hardly sympathetic to the financial wheeler-dealers who got us into this mess, do a good job of kee! ping it all straight; and although we know how it turned out, the story is surprisingly gripping and tense, with brilliant performances by Giamatti (as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke) and Crudup (as banker-economist Timothy Geithner) in particular. With the 2008 presidential election looming, most of us were unaware of how close the global economy came to complete failure, but by the end of Too Big to Fail, we are left with the sobering realization that most of our money exists merely on paper--no bank could possibly cover its investors if they all wanted to liquidate at the same time. So perhaps putting a stash of cash in the mattress or a coffee can buried in the back yard isn't such a bad idea after all. --Sam GrahamBrother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men, begun by Joseph Beam and completed by Essex Hemphill after Beam's death in 1988, is a collection of now-classic literary work by black gay male writers. This new edition includes an intr! oduction by Dr. Jafari Sinclaire Allen.MISER BROTHER'S CHRISTM! AS DE - DVD MovieRemember Snow Miser and Heat Miser, the two brothers who couldn't stop fighting in The Year Without a Santa Claus? They're back and they've been thrust into the most unexpected roles of potential saviors of Christmas thanks to the antics of their self-absorbed brother North Wind. North Wind is plotting to get rid of Santa and claim Christmas as his own holiday, but when his plans go awry, Snow Miser and Heat Miser are blamed for Santa's mishap and their mother, Mother Nature, decides that a fitting punishment is to force the boys to work together and take Santa's place during the holiday rush. Needless to say, the constantly feuding brothers don't work well together, but Mrs. Claus devises a plan involving the naughty and nice list that might just force the boys to put aside their rivalry and collaborate. A stop-animation production reminiscent of favorite Rankin-Bass holiday specials like Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudolph the Red Nosed Rein! deer, A Miser Brothers Christmas features hand-crafted, incredibly expressive puppets, richly detailed sets, excellent voice talent including Mickey Rooney as Santa, and a crisp, high definition picture that adds a whole new dimension of detail and clarity to the classic animation form. A 23-minute bonus featurette takes an in-depth look at everything from puppet construction to voice casting, the use of color in the film, and the patience and attention to detail required in stop animation, and features interview footage from producers, puppet makers, animators, voice actors, and many others. A Miser Brothers Christmas is an entertaining holiday film with attitude, conflict, and a great message about overcoming rivalry and working together. (Ages 3 and older). --Tami Horiuchi
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Sunday, December 11, 2011

The Farmhouse: New Inspiration for the Classic American Home

• ISBN13: 9781561588749
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Farmhouses evoke nostalgic memories--real or imagined--of a simpler life and a deep, nourishing connection to the seasons and the land. While most of us don't live that way anymore, we all share a longing for the values that this classic American house form represents.
So what makes a true American farmhouse? A farmhouse is intimately connected to the land and all its seasons, dominates a community of buildings, and is built to last using natural, indigenous materials. These are the core qualities of the farmhouse style, whether old or new.
From a working farm on Martha's Vineyard to a horse ranch in Washington State, this remarkable collec! tion of 20 new and remodeled farmhouses celebrates the best American farmhouses built in the past five years. Over 300 photographs beautifully illustrate these homes, and the accompanying site and floor plans, historical sidebars, and up-close details add depth to this rich collection.
With this ground breaking book, America's quintessential house style is reinvented for the 21st-century family.

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Glitter Assortment

• 12 Jars of Assorted 3/4 Ounce Glitter
• Colors in Assortment - Red, Green, Blue, Silver, Gold and Multi-Colored

GLITTER 12 PK. 3/4 OZ.

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Monday, December 5, 2011

ScanGauge II Ultra Compact 3-in-1 Automotive Computer with Customizable Real-Time Fuel Economy Digital Gauges

• Programmable 3-in-1 automotive trip computer, diagnostic scan tool, and up to 37 digital gauges in one (vehicle dependent)
• Watch fuel consumption, cost-per-mile, coolant temperature, engine speed, horsepower, and much more in real time
• Works on all 1996 or newer OBDII cars, including gas, diesel, propane and hybrid vehicles
• Checks for Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs), clears the codes, and can turn off the "Check Engine" light
• No tools required for installation, small size fits nearly anywhere in the vehicle

Erin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) strike sparks for a summer fling in New York City but neither expects it to last once Erin heads home to San Francisco and Garrett remains behind for his Big Apple job. But after six increasingly romantic weeks, neither is sure they want it to end. So despite the opposing coasts, naysaying friends and family an! d a few unexpected temptations, the couple just might have found something like love. And helped by a lot of texting and late-night phone calls, they might actually go the distance.Going the Distance sparkles with wit and true romance--something of a rarity among mass-market romantic comedies. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, who have been a couple in real life, use their personal chemistry to effective ends in the film. They play Erin and Garrett, geography-crossed lovers who, after a whirlwind romance of six weeks in New York ("Keep it light! Keep it light" they both say, futilely), try to see if they can keep the love fires burning when Erin must move to the West Coast. There are predictable pitfalls and speed bumps that populate any romantic comedy, as well as a sublime supporting cast of friends and siblings. Especially notable is Christina Applegate as Erin's sister, Corinne, jaded and hilarious, and fiercely protective of her sister. But the charm of Going t! he Distance is in the winsomeness of its main stars. Barry! more and Long seem to be acting effortlessly, and their enjoyment of each other's company lets the audience feel a part of the romance. First-time screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe is less focused on zingers that are hard to believe as dialogue, and more on the subtle ways people get to know each other, and enjoy each other--especially with humor. Director Nanette Burstein (documentaries including American Teen and The Kid Stays in the Picture) keeps the action moving deftly and lets the two stars shine--even as they long for one another across the miles. Erin and Garrett's stab at phone sex is laugh-out-loud funny, yet their tender, tentative connection feels real and warm. Going the Distance lets its likable stars cross the finish line, and bring the audience along with them. --A.T. HurleyErin (Drew Barrymore) and Garrett (Justin Long) strike sparks for a summer fling in New York City but neither expects it to last once Erin heads home to San Francisco and G! arrett remains behind for his Big Apple job. But after six romantic weeks, neither is sure they want it to end. So despite opposing coasts, naysaying friends and family and unexpected temptations, the couple just might have found something like love. And helped by a lot of texting and late-night phone calls, they might actually go the distance. Going the Distance sparkles with wit and true romance--something of a rarity among mass-market romantic comedies. Drew Barrymore and Justin Long, who have been a couple in real life, use their personal chemistry to effective ends in the film. They play Erin and Garrett, geography-crossed lovers who, after a whirlwind romance of six weeks in New York ("Keep it light! Keep it light" they both say, futilely), try to see if they can keep the love fires burning when Erin must move to the West Coast. There are predictable pitfalls and speed bumps that populate any romantic comedy, as well as a sublime supporting cast of friends and ! siblings. Especially notable is Christina Applegate as Erin's ! sister, Corinne, jaded and hilarious, and fiercely protective of her sister. But the charm of Going the Distance is in the winsomeness of its main stars. Barrymore and Long seem to be acting effortlessly, and their enjoyment of each other's company lets the audience feel a part of the romance. First-time screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe is less focused on zingers that are hard to believe as dialogue, and more on the subtle ways people get to know each other, and enjoy each other--especially with humor. Director Nanette Burstein (documentaries including American Teen and The Kid Stays in the Picture) keeps the action moving deftly and lets the two stars shine--even as they long for one another across the miles. Erin and Garrett's stab at phone sex is laugh-out-loud funny, yet their tender, tentative connection feels real and warm. Going the Distance lets its likable stars cross the finish line, and bring the audience along with them. --A.T. HurleyOrigin! al soundtrack to the 2010 motion picture. Music plays a big part in the movie's storyline. Going The Distance introduces the UK band, The Boxer Rebellion, to US moviegoers with a live performance by the band at the end of the movie and the soundtrack brings The Boxer Rebellion to physical retail in the US for the first time. The Airborne Toxic Event recorded a special version of their new and unreleased song, 'Half Of Something Else', for the soundtrack.Going the Distance is the compelling saga of George Thomas' quest to prove himself physically and emotionally after a car accident left him with life-threatening epileptic seizures. The story is told vividly through Thomas' eyes as he pedals 2,911 miles in the bicycle Race Across America. As he battles stifling temperatures, grueling climbs, relentless headwinds, heavy rains, tedium and hallucinations from sleep deprivation, Thomas is repeatedly reminded of the even greater obstacles he once had to overcome simply to ride a ! bicycle again. Ultimately, Thomas discovers his journey is mor! e than a n individual accomplishment; it's a platform to inspire others. Going the Distance examines his extraordinary evolution from an ordinary man with an ordinary name to an accomplished ultra-athlete. George Thomas' story is both intriguing and inspiring -- a shining example of courage in the face of enormous odds.The ScanGaugeII is a compact vehicle computer that connects to the diagnostic connector in seconds and gives you an extensive trip computer, real time gauges and trouble code reader. It can read fuel economy as you drive, tell you how fast your friend drove your car last night, tell you when you are going to run out of fuel and dozens of other functions. Installation takes only seconds and requires no tools. It can be moved from car to car. Works on gas, diesel, propane, and hybrid vehicles. The ScanGaugeII works on all OBDII protocols including the new CAN protocol. The ScanGaugeII is a 3-in-1 automotive computer that combines a multifunction trip computer, diagnosti! c scan tool, and up to 37 digital gauges in one small package. It connects easily to your vehicle's On-Board Diagnostic (OBDII) port and communicates directly with the vehicle's computer. Not sure if your car uses OBDII or Controller Area Network (CAN)? The unit will automatically determine which system to use and switch to it. The ScanGaugeII works on all 1996 or newer OBDII cars, including gas, diesel, propane and hybrid vehicles, as well as vehicles with the latest CAN systems. A detachable cable allows for easy transfer between multiple vehicles. Its menu-driven operation means there's no need to memorize complex sequences, and no tools are required for installation.

Expandable Add-A-Gauge Technology
The ScanGaugeII has been redesigned with expandable Add-A-Gauge (aka XGauge) technology. Add to the original 12 gauges by customizing the ScanGaugeII to monitor up to 25 more--depending on your specific vehicle's sensor design. Four gauges can be ! displayed simultaneously and can help determine fuel consump! tion rat es, allowing you to adjust driving behavior and save gas. At the same time, keep an eye on coolant temperature, engine speed, and much more in real time. If there is a young driver in the house or friends borrow your car, the ScanGaugeII can record speeds of up to 158 mph and store the information for you to view later, so you will know just how fast your young driver or friend was going last night. If the unit was disconnected, you'll know: An indicator will be displayed in the trip data.

ScanGaugeII mounts easily to your dash.

Gauges include:

• Horsepower
• Fuel Consumption Rate to 1/100th per gallon/liter
• Vehicle speed (MPH)
• Fuel Economy
• Cost Per Mile/Cost Per Trip
• Manifold Pressu! re (not available on some vehicles)
• Battery Voltage
• Engine Load
• Coolant Temperature
• Throttle Position
• Intake Air Temperature
• Ignition Timing
• Engine Speed (RPM)
• O2 Sensor Data
• Fuel Trim
• Hybrid Battery Charge (for Toyota Prius and Ford Escape)
• And many more, depending on your vehicle's sensor design

ScanGaugeII makes diagnostics easy. View Larger

Scan Tool
The ScanGaugeII includes a diagnostic scan tool that can check for Diagnostic Trouble Codes (DTCs), clear the codes, and turn off the "Check Engine" light on 99% of 1996 and newer vehicles. (However, this feature may not work on some trouble codes in Dodge vehicles.) If any D! TCs are found, the ScanGauge will show how many there are as! well as the codes themselves. Then you can use the Internet or repair manual to find out which is the failed part is, so you can repair it yourself or know what needs to be fixed at the mechanic's shop.

Multifunction Trip Computer
Four sets of data are automatically recorded on the trip computer: Current, Today, Previous Day, and Tank Trip. The "current" trip restarts after the engine has been off for more than 3 minutes. The "today" trip restarts after the vehicle has not moved for 9 hours, and the data from "today" is moved to "previous day" when you restart the car, so you don't have to reset the computer every time you begin a trip. "Tank trip" resets when you fill up the tank. It can provide you with "to empty" data and other useful information, which can be viewed any time during the trip. The trip computer also integrates information from the Cost Per Mile gauge. Simply enter how much you paid per gallon or liter of fuel, and the ScanGauge will aut! omatically calculate the cost of your trips as you drive. The ScanGaugeII features 12 individually stored parameters, including:

ScanGaugeII features 63 backlit colors. View Larger

• Maximum Speed
• Average Speed
• Maximum Coolant Temperature
• Maximum RPM
• Driving Time
• Driving Distance
• Fuel Used
• Fuel Cost
• Trip Fuel Economy
• Distance to Empty
• Time to Empty
• Fuel to Empty

Personalize It
A large, high-contrast LCD display makes viewing the information easy, and both the display and keys are backlit and can be set to off, low, or high. With 63 possible colors, user settings, tank trip data, and vehicle settings that are ! automatically saved, and up to 10 user commands that can be ! stored a nd recalled, the ScanGaugeII can be easily customized to suit your needs.

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Insten Universal World Wide Travel Charger Adapter Plug, White - by eForCity

• NOTE: This charger adapter plug converts the power outlet only, it does NOT convert electrical output current and voltage. Please make sure your device carries a electrical converter when you travel to other countries with different electrical output. If
• Converts power outlet when traveling to other countries
• Includes a travel pouch for easy storage, LED charging indicator
• Color: white

When hair stylist Peaches (Mo'Nique) arrives in Beverly Hills to get reacquainted with her sister, Angela (Kellita Smith of "The Bernie Mac Show"), sparks fly! Angela finds out Peaches owes $50,000 in back taxes and is on the run. So the two sisters join forces to fight off a pesky rival salon owner in a show-stopping competition to win a cash prize for Peaches and bragging rights at the city's annual hair show.Hair Show is a lively and funny ensemble comedy set in the busy, hig! h-pressure milieu of an upscale hair salon. As in Barbershop or Empire Records, a handful of idiosyncratic characters share the shop's load but are individually defined by peculiar obsessions or circumstances. Jun Ni (Keiko Agena), for instance, just wants to learn to cook for the husband who adores her yet who is starving because of her failures in the kitchen. Peaches (Mo'Nique) is trying to save her bacon from the IRS agents hounding her for $50,000 in back taxes. At the center of the story is Peaches' rivalrous relationship with sister Angela (Kellita Smith), who took a sizable inheritance from her late grandmother (Peaches got no cash from Grandma's will) and built the salon in which brassy Peaches might be the most talented stylist. Crisply directed by Leslie Small and co-produced by Magic Johnson, Hair Show is lightly but genuinely rewarding. --Tom KeoghThe Salon stars Vivica A. Fox (Jenny) as the inheritor of a neighborhood beauty salon.! Jenny is being forced to sell her shop to the Department of W! ater and Power (DWP) due to eminent domain. She has not told the other tenants in the salon and is trying to build a case to save the shop. The DWP is represented by a hot shot attorney (Darrin Dewitt Henson) who takes a liking to her and a romance begins. This is a fresh look on the inside of a salon where anything can happen.

HAIR: The Story of the Show That Defined a Generation is the first and only authorized history of this groundbreaking showâ€"from its original conception, to its highly influential initial run, to its numerous productions, to the 2009 sell-out Broadway production, to the upcoming 2010-11 national tourâ€"including such pivotal points as the real-life events that inspired its creators, the original off-Broadway production, the 1968 move to Broadway, and recent productions from around the world. This stand-out book features over 200 4/c photographs and a stunning removable poster.

Brimming with the energy, passion and music that rocked a nati! on, Hair is an entertaining and powerful tribute to the turbulent spirit of the '60s. Brilliantly recreated by OscarÂ(r)-winning* director Milos Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller (Ragtime), this vibrant screen version of the Broadway phenomenon ranks "among the best film musicals" (The Hollywood Reporter)! Fresh from the farm, Claude Bukowski (John Savage, The Thin Red Line) arrives in New York City for a date with the Army Induction Board, only to walk into a hippie "happening" inCentral Park and fall in love with the beautiful Shelia (Beverly D'Angelo, American History X). Befriended by the hippies' pacifist leader, Berger (Treat Williams, Mulholland Falls), and urged to crash a formal party in order to declare his love for Shelia, Claude begins an adventure that lands him in jail, Central Park Lake and, finally, in the army. But Berger's final effort to save Claude from Vietnam sets in motion a bizarre twist of fate with shocking consequences. *1975: One Flew Ov! er the Cuckoo's Nest; 1984: AmadeusThe Age of Aquarius is brou! ght to l ife by the filmmaker who made Amadeus a household word. Milos Forman directed this version of James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermot's landmark musical in 1979 between his Oscar-winning films One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. With mixed reviews (Gene Siskel named it that year's best film) and lukewarm box-office grosses, the film all but disappeared from the collective consciousness. Yet the film beautifully delivers on its promise to bring the '60s back to life. Hair re-creates a colorful world of counterculture finding an anvil to pound on: the Vietnam War. Forman and his design team allow the film to wash over you, starting at the free-flowing opening in which masses of hippies, police, and even their horses eagerly groove to the familiar beat of "Aquarius." In the best work of his career, Treat Williams makes his leading- man debut as Berger, the leader of the Central Park troop who takes draftee Claude (John Savage) under his! wing on his trip through New York City and the apex of what the '60s was. The new recording of the music is quite fine, with Chicago band member Don Dacus's rendition of the title song a highlight. As Berger's pièce de résistance number says, "I've Got Life"; so does the film, right down to its poignant declaration to "let the sunshine in." --Doug ThomasSlides, Prepared; Fisher Science Education; Raphanus root tip; Wholemount; Showing root hairs and capNOTE: This charger adapter plug converts the power outlet only, it does NOT convert electrical output current and voltage. Please make sure your device carries a electrical converter when you travel to other countries with different electrical output. If your device requires a electrical converter, please pair up the original electrical converter with this world travel charger plug. For example: Notebook computers, Gaming systems (PlayStation, XBOX, Wii,), etc. Converts power outlet when traveling to other countries! . Includes a travel pouch for easy storage. LED charging indic! ator. Co lor: white. Works in worldwide: United States, Canada, Europe, Middle East, South America, Asia, The Caribbean, Great Britain,Ireland, Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, China, Japan, and more than 150 countries

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House of Wax (Widescreen Edition)

• House of Wax tells the story of a group of friends who fall prey to a sinister plot while passing through a small town on their way to a college football game.Running Time: 113 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R Age: 085393894528 UPC: 085393894528 Manufacturer No: 38945

Museum fire turns handsome man into human monster who steals bodies from morgue to create lifelike images in wax.House of Wax brought Vincent Price into the horror genre, where he fit as snugly as a scalpel in a mad scientist's hand. A remake of the 1933 film Mystery of the Wax Museum, this entertaining Gothic shocker casts Price as a sculptor of wax figures; his unwilling victims--er, "models"--lend their bodies to his lifelike depictions of Marie Antoinette and Joan of Arc. The film was one of the top 10 moneymakers of its year, thanks in part to the 3-D gimmick, which explains why so many thin! gs are aimed at the camera (why else would the paddleball man be there?). Footnote to history: director Andre De Toth was blind in one eye, and thus could not see in three dimensions.

Not at all a musty relic of the early-sound era, the original Mystery of the Wax Museum (shot in a soft, trial version of Technicolor) is saucy, pre-Code fun. As corpses disappear from the morgue, Lionel Atwill's wax museum adds to its displays. Coincidence, or the work of the hideously deformed fiend stalking the Manhattan night? Most of the snappy dialogue comes courtesy of reporter Glenda Farrell, a vintage wisecracking dame. --Robert HortonHouse of Wax tells the story of a group of friends who fall prey to a sinister plot while passing through a small town on their way to a college football game.You know the one about the group of horny kids who get offed one by one? Yeah, so do director Jaume Collet-Serra and his screenwriters, who have updated an old Vincent Price fli! ck and sandwiched it between hearty slices of The Blair Wit! ch Proje ct and various Friday the 13th films. Lots of WB and Fox network hotties--including 24's Elisha Cuthbert, One Tree Hill's Chad Michael Murray, and, well, Paris Hilton--have car trouble and stumble onto a town populated by real killer personalities. The R-rated result is fairly gruesome and, though no one ever quite looks frightened enough, Collet-Serra knows his way around a jolting suspense sequence or two. Cuthbert and an unintentionally funny Murray (striking ludicrous poses as some kind of real toughie) act more like angry ex-lovers than the fraternal twins they're supposed to be; Hilton acts bored while her real-life video scandal is exploited for ironic kicks; and the film heads shamelessly over-the-top with each new twist. As an exercise in bloody mayhem, it has a few novel touches, but you can easily find better scares. --Steve Wiecking

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The Hangover (Rated Single-Disc Edition)

• Condition: New
• Format: DVD
• Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Full Screen; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC

From The Hangover director Todd Phillips, Due Date throws two unlikely companions together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous. Expectant first-time father Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) looks forward to his new child’s due date five days away. As Peter hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at his wife’s side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when an encounter with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) forces Peter to hitch a ride with Ethan on a cross-country trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, many friendships and Peter’s last nerve.Due Date is such a broad comedy, it needs the width of the whole United States in which to play out. Directo! r Todd Phillips (The Hangover) lets the gross-out comedic charms of his frequent star Zach Galifianakis run wild, which is exactly what Galifianakis fans want. And Robert Downey Jr. reminds viewers of his appealing straight-man comic talents, too. Due Date is like Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets Nine Months with a little of The Odd Couple thrown in. The writing of Due Date is uneven--perhaps a result of its having had a minimum of six screenwriters working on it. And run time, at only 100 or so minutes, seems much longer. But Due Date gets its energy and charge from its two stars and from Phillips's slaphappy direction. Galifianakis plays Ethan, who's a version of every character Galifianakis has played to date--slovenly, irresponsible, and uncensored. Downey is Peter, a straitlaced new father-to-be, who through an improbable series of unfortunate events can find no other way to get across the country for the birth of hi! s first child than to hitch a ride with Ethan. If the situatio! n is som ewhat predictable, the comedic moments are not--though by halfway though the trip, viewers may wonder if Peter will be able to resist strangling Ethan with his own scarf, or worse. The deft supporting cast includes Michelle Monaghan as Peter's wife, Jamie Foxx (in kind of a throwaway role), and Juliette Lewis, appealing and not too ditzy. Viewers who love Phillips's and Galifianakis's trademark slapstick shtick will find plenty to laugh about on this long, strange trip. --A.T. HurleyFrom The Hangover director Todd Phillips, Due Date throws two unlikely companions together on a road trip that turns out to be as life-changing as it is outrageous. Expectant first-time father Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) looks forward to his new child’s due date five days away. As Peter hurries to catch a flight home from Atlanta to be at his wife’s side for the birth, his best intentions go completely awry when an encounter with aspiring actor Ethan Tremblay (Zach ! Galifianakis) forces Peter to hitch a ride with Ethan on a cross-country trip that will ultimately destroy several cars, many friendships and Peter’s last nerve. Due Date is such a broad comedy, it needs the width of the whole United States in which to play out. Director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) lets the gross-out comedic charms of his frequent star Zach Galifianakis run wild, which is exactly what Galifianakis fans want. And Robert Downey Jr. reminds viewers of his appealing straight-man comic talents, too. Due Date is like Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets Nine Months with a little of The Odd Couple thrown in. The writing of Due Date is uneven--perhaps a result of its having had a minimum of six screenwriters working on it. And run time, at only 100 or so minutes, seems much longer. But Due Date gets its energy and charge from its two stars and from Phillips's slaphappy direction. Galifianakis plays Ethan, w! ho's a version of every character Galifianakis has played to d! ate--slo venly, irresponsible, and uncensored. Downey is Peter, a straitlaced new father-to-be, who through an improbable series of unfortunate events can find no other way to get across the country for the birth of his first child than to hitch a ride with Ethan. If the situation is somewhat predictable, the comedic moments are not--though by halfway though the trip, viewers may wonder if Peter will be able to resist strangling Ethan with his own scarf, or worse. The deft supporting cast includes Michelle Monaghan as Peter's wife, Jamie Foxx (in kind of a throwaway role), and Juliette Lewis, appealing and not too ditzy. Viewers who love Phillips's and Galifianakis's trademark slapstick shtick will find plenty to laugh about on this long, strange trip. --A.T. HurleyDue Date is such a broad comedy, it needs the width of the whole United States in which to play out. Director Todd Phillips (The Hangover) lets the gross-out comedic charms of his frequent star Zach Ga! lifianakis run wild, which is exactly what Galifianakis fans want. And Robert Downey Jr. reminds viewers of his appealing straight-man comic talents, too. Due Date is like Planes, Trains and Automobiles meets Nine Months with a little of The Odd Couple thrown in. The writing of Due Date is uneven--perhaps a result of its having had a minimum of six screenwriters working on it. And run time, at only 100 or so minutes, seems much longer. But Due Date gets its energy and charge from its two stars and from Phillips's slaphappy direction. Galifianakis plays Ethan, who's a version of every character Galifianakis has played to date--slovenly, irresponsible, and uncensored. Downey is Peter, a straitlaced new father-to-be, who through an improbable series of unfortunate events can find no other way to get across the country for the birth of his first child than to hitch a ride with Ethan. If the situation is somewhat predictable, the comedic! moments are not--though by halfway though the trip, viewers m! ay wonde r if Peter will be able to resist strangling Ethan with his own scarf, or worse. The deft supporting cast includes Michelle Monaghan as Peter's wife, Jamie Foxx (in kind of a throwaway role), and Juliette Lewis, appealing and not too ditzy. Viewers who love Phillips's and Galifianakis's trademark slapstick shtick will find plenty to laugh about on this long, strange trip. --A.T. HurleyMovie Summary A first time expectant father has an adventurous trip with an aspiring actor while travelling cross country to be with his expecting wife. DVD Details * Actor(s): Robert Jr. Downey * Format: Widescreen * Soundtrack: English * Additional: Additional Footage Behind the Scenes Include Digital Copy * Rating: R * MSRP: $35.99 * Release Date: 2 22 2011 * Number of Discs: 2A las vegas-set comedy centered around three groomsmen who lose their about-to-be-wed buddy during their drunken misadventures then must retrace their steps in order to find him. Studio: Warner Home Video Rele! ase Date: 12/15/2009 Starring: Bradley Cooper Heather Graham Run time: 100 minutes Rating: RIf you like your humor broadside up, hold the subtlety, you'll want to nurse this Hangover with your best buds. The ensemble cast meshes perfectly--it's like a super-R-rated episode of Friends: silly, slapstick, and completely in the viewer's face. When four pals go to Vegas to celebrate the imminent nuptials of one of them, they partake in a rooftop toast to "a night we'll never forget." But they're in for a big surprise: their celebration drinks were laced with date-rape drugs, so when they awake in their hotel room 12 hours later, not only are they hung over, but they can't remember what they did all night long. Oh, and they're missing the groom-to-be.

The film is so cheerfully raunchy, so fiercely crude, that the humor becomes as intoxicating as the mind-altering substances. The standout in the ensemble is Zach Galifianakis, who is alternately creepy and hilar! ious. Ed Helm (The Office), in addition to his memory, ! loses a tooth in uncomfortably realistic fashion, and Bradley Cooper (He's Just Not That into You) has deadpan comic timing that whips along at the speed of light. "Ma'am, you have an incredible rack," he blares to a pedestrian from the squad car the guys have "borrowed." "I should have been a [bleeping] cop," he tells himself approvingly.

Director Todd Phillips brings back his deft handling of the actors and the dude humor that worked so well in Old School, as well as the unctuous Dan Finnerty, memorable as a lounge/wedding singer in both films. But it's the nonstop volley of jokes--most cheerily politically incorrect--that grabs the audience and thrashes it around the hotel room. Just watch out for the tiger in the bathroom. --A.T. Hurley

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House of D

• Actors: David Duchovny, Tea Leoni, Robin Williams, Anton Yelchin, Erykah Badu.
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC.
• Language: English, French. Subtitles: English, Spanish.
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
• Rated PG-13. Run Time: 97 minutes.

In his directorial debut David Duchovny delivers a classic coming-of-age tale. To reconcile with his 13-year-old son and estranged wife artist Tom Warshaw (Duchovny) revisits the life changing events of his own adolescence in New York City in 1973 when his best friends were Pappass (Robin Williams) a mentally challenged janitor and Lady (Erykah Badu) a truth-dispensing detainee in the East Village's legendary Women's House of Detention. Filled with laugh-out-load moments as well as poignancy House Of D is a warmhearted and wise film.System Requirements: Running Tim! e 97 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 031398177654 Manufacturer No: 17765House of D is a bittersweet, moving story of an American expatriate's painful decision to come to terms with the childhood he fled in early 1970s New York City. David Duchovny wrote and directed this comedy-drama; he also stars as the adult version of the film's hero, Tom Warshaw, an illustrator who has spent most of his life in Paris and decidesâ€"on the occasion of his son's birthdayâ€"to finally reveal long-withheld facts about his past.

The bulk of the story, told in flashback, portrays 13-year-old Tom (Anton Yelchin) as a quick-witted prince of his neighborhood, a delivery boy who knows every eccentric on his bicycle route and a Catholic school kid fond of playing pranks on his clueless French teacher and soulful principal (Frank Langella). His best friend is the school's mildly retarded, 41-year-old janitor, Pappas (Robin Williams), and his advisor on matters o! f the heart is Lady (Erykah Badu), a prison inmate whom the fa! therless Tom (or Tommy, as he's called in 1973) can neither see nor touch. Tommy's vivacity is an asset at home, where his mother (Tea Leoni), a grieving widow with a mounting addiction to pills, is slipping away from her son's ability to help. Duchovny's screenplay sometimes borders on the precious: A number of scenes are enamored with their own boldness and originality, as if Duchovny has been squirreling away lots of colorfully expressive storytelling details for years, and unloaded them here. But that flaw all but disappears in the glow of House of D's emotional resonance and honesty, not to mention several exceptional performances. Among these is Zelda Williams's work as Tommy's sage-beyond-her-years girlfriend, Melissa, whose name offers a suitable excuse to work a rather lovely Allman Brothers song into the soundtrack. --Tom Keogh

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Clear and Present Danger (Jack Ryan)

• ISBN13: 9780425122129
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!

In CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, Harrison Ford returns as intrepid CIA agent Jack Ryan. When his mentor, Admiral Greer (Jones), becomes gravely ill, Ryan is appointed acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence. His first assignment: investigate the murder of one of the President's friends, a prominent U.S. businessman with secret ties to Colombian drug cartels. Unbeknownst to Ryan, the CIA has already dispatched a deadly field operative (Dafoe) to lead a paramilitary force against the Colombian drug lords. Caught in the crossfire, Ryan takes matters into his own hands, risking his career and life for the only cause he still believes in -- the truth.The third installment in the cinematic incarnation of ! Tom Clancy's CIA analyst Jack Ryan and the second starring Harrison Ford, this follow-up to Patriot Games is a more complex, rewarding, and bolder film than its predecessor. Ford returns as Ryan, this time embroiled in a failed White House bid to wipe out a Colombian drug cartel and cover up the mess. The script, by Clancy and John Milius (Red Dawn), has an air of true adventure about it as Ryan places himself in harm's way to extract covert soldiers abandoned in a Latin American jungle. There are a couple of remarkable set pieces expertly handled by Patriot Games director Phillip Noyce, especially a shocking scene involving an ambush on Ryan's car in an alley. The supporting cast is superb, including Willem Dafoe as the soldiers' leader, Henry Czerny as Ryan's enemy at the CIA, Joaquim de Almeida as a smooth-talking villain, Ann Magnuson as an unwitting confederate in international crime, and James Earl Jones as Ryan's dying boss. The DVD release has a! widescreen presentation, theatrical trailer, closed captionin! g, optio nal French soundtrack, and optional Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh Widescreen/Blu-Ray. PG 13.Clear and Present Danger is a 1994 film directed by Phillip Noyce, based on the book of the same name by Tom Clancy. As in the novel, Jack Ryan is appointed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Acting Deputy Director and discovers that he is being kept in the dark by colleagues who are conducting a covert war against drug lords in Colombia.The third installment in the cinematic incarnation of Tom Clancy's CIA analyst Jack Ryan and the second starring Harrison Ford, this follow-up to Patriot Games is a more complex, rewarding, and bolder film than its predecessor. Ford returns as Ryan, this time embroiled in a failed White House bid to wipe out a Colombian drug cartel and cover up the mess. The script, by Clancy and John Milius (Red Dawn), has an air of true adventure about it as Ryan places himself in harm's way to extract covert soldiers abandoned in a Latin Americ! an jungle. There are a couple of remarkable set pieces expertly handled by Patriot Games director Phillip Noyce, especially a shocking scene involving an ambush on Ryan's car in an alley. The supporting cast is superb, including Willem Dafoe as the soldiers' leader, Henry Czerny as Ryan's enemy at the CIA, Joaquim de Almeida as a smooth-talking villain, Ann Magnuson as an unwitting confederate in international crime, and James Earl Jones as Ryan's dying boss. The DVD release has a widescreen presentation, theatrical trailer, closed captioning, optional French soundtrack, and optional Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh The controversial bestseller from Tom Clancy, the all-time master of the techno-thriller. CIA Deputy Director Jack Ryan joins the war on drugs. And when three American officials are assassinated in Colombia, the U.S. response is swift-and shocking.At the end of the prologue to Clear and Present Danger, Clancy writes, "And so began something t! hat had not quite begun and would not soon end, with many peo! ple in m any places moving off in directions and on missions which they all mistakenly thought they understood. That was just as well. The future was too fearful for contemplation, and beyond the expected, illusory finish lines were things fated by the decisions made this morning--and, once decided, best unseen." In Clear and Present Danger nothing is as clear as it may seem.

The president, unsatisfied with the success of his "war on drugs," decides that he wants some immediate success. But after John Clark's covert strike team is deployed to Colombia for Operation Showboat, the drug lords strike back taking several civilian casualties. The chief executive's polls plummet. He orders Ritter to terminate their unofficial plan and leave no traces. Jack Ryan, who has just been named CIA deputy director of intelligence is enraged when he discovers that has been left out of the loop of Colombian operations. Several of America's most highly trained soldiers are stran! ded in an unfinished mission that, according to all records, never existed. Ryan decides to get the men out.

Ultimately, Clear and Present Danger is about good conscience, law, and politics, with Jack Ryan and CIA agent John Clark as its dual heroes. Ryan relentlessly pursues what he knows is right and legal, even if it means confronting the president of the United States. Clark is the perfect soldier, but a man who finally holds his men higher than the orders of any careless commander.

Along with the usual, stunning array of military hardware and the latest techno-gadgets, Clear and Present Danger further develops the relationships and characters that Clancy fans have grown to love. Admiral James Greer passes the CIA torch to his pupil, Ryan. Mr. Clark and Chavez meet for the first time. Other recurring characters like Robert Ritter and "the President" add continuity to Clancy's believable, alternate reality. This is Clancy at his best.! --Patrick O'Kelley

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