Performing Arts - Page 40

Manufacturer: Sony Legacy Brand: AC/DC Model: 2230871

Hard rock's AC/DC is caught live in concert at England's Castle Donington Park on August 17, 1991.

Manufacturer: Lions Gate Brand: LIONS GATE HOME ENT. Model: 2223153

When Madea (Tyler Perry) gets sick, her family comes to her aid. What they don't realize is that they're the ones who need her help. As always, Madea's cockeyed outlook on life saves the day and guarantees side-splitting laughs along the way. The moment the six-foot-tall, chain-smoking, gun-toting grandmother Madea walks on stage, it's clear that her creator, Tyler Perry, is a man who knows and appreciates his audience. Perry is the writer/director/star of the surprise hit Diary of a Mad Black Woman; like that movie, the stage play I Can Do Bad All By Myself mixes melodrama, gospel music, and freewheeling improvisational comedy--all the more loose and rambunctious because it was recorded live. In I Can Do Bad All By Myself, Madea's two granddaughters grapple with man trouble: One sister is now engaged to the other's husband, while the other resists the attentions of an ex-con with good intentions. While this angst unfolds, the heavy emotions are punctuated by rousing gospel singing and Madea's barbed, heretical wit. There's nothing sophisticated or subtle here; Perry wants to give his audience a good laugh, wring a tear from their eyes, and send them home with renewed faith in the Lord. Diary of a Mad Black Woman may have made Perry a nationally-recognized name, but watching him live on stage makes it clear he was a star long before the movie came out--the rapport he has with the crowd is palpable. --Bret Fetzer

Manufacturer: Lions Gate Brand: Lionsgate Model: 4958686

The fireworks begin when Madea's family gathers for her granddaughter's wedding. As usual, Madea (Tyler Perry) rules the roost, as she and her neighbor, the wacky Mr. Brown (David Mann), deliver nonstop laughs. Live, love, rejoice...it's Madea's Family Reunion! When pistol-packing, chain-smoking granny Mabel "Madea" Simmons (Tyler Perry) invites her family over for the weekend, chaos is sure to follow. First they gather for her sister Irene's funeral and then for the wedding of her granddaughter, Lisa (Sonya Evans). Naturally, nothing goes as planned. The rest of her extended family include daughters Cora (Tamela J. Mann) and Vickie (Pebbles Johnson), granddaughters Jackie (D'Atra Hicks) and Tina (Zakiya Williams), and irrepressible neighbor Mr. Brown (David Mann). The urban inspirational comedy, which was followed by popular spin-off Meet the Browns, takes place between the two events as family members attempt to heal their differences through quips, scriptures, and gospel-oriented numbers. Written, produced, and directed by Perry (who co-wrote the music and lyrics), Madea's Family Reunion was filmed in his hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana in February 2002. A feature film version starring Blair Underwood and Lynn Whitfield is planned for 2006. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video Brand: Warner Manufacturing Model: 4961007

Midsummer Night's Dream, A (1935) (DVD)Love is blind, fickle and true. And under the sway of capricious fairies it becomes blinder ( a queen romances as donkey), more fickle (best friends swoon over each other's beau) and truest of all (lovers repledge their devotion). "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" in Shakespeare's bewitching comedy!]]> James Cagney and Mickey Rooney romping in a Shakespearian fairyland? This could only be A Midsummer Night's Dream, Warner Bros.' 1935 attempt at classing up the proletarian studio. The legendary German stage director Max Reinhardt had produced the play at the Hollywood Bowl to enchanted, sold-out audiences, and Warners decided to hand Reinhardt the keys to the studio (along with fellow Germans William Dieterle, co-director, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who adapted Mendelssohn's music). Reinhardt created an eye-popping phantasmagoria, a movie laced with sparkling sequins, flying fairies, and moon-kissed forests. As for the words, Reinhardt had a collection of Warners studio players, notably James Cagney as Bottom, whose playing of "Pyramus and Thisby" with Joe E. Brown is perhaps the movie's comic high point. The other actors are decidedly varied, and they tend to be overwhelmed by the production design. Not so Mickey Rooney, whose performance as Puck is a feral, antic act of imagination (he was 14 during filming); picture a boy raised by wolves who somehow memorized Shakespeare. His Puck growls and screams and mocks the drama of the other characters, a little postmodern imp before his time. (Critic David Thomson called this Puck "truly inhuman, one of the cinema's most arresting pieces of magic"). The rest of the movie comes to earth with some regularity, but it's a one-of-a-kind production, and a reminder of the lavish, unreal possibilities within a movie studio. --Robert Horton

Manufacturer: Universal Studios Home Entertainment Brand: Universal Studios Model: 8924228 Color: color

From award-winning director Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) comes the film inspired by one of the country’s most captivating and infamous outlaws — John Dillinger. Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean series) stars as the charismatic and elusive bank robber marked by the FBI as America’s first “Public Enemy Number One.” Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) plays Billie Frechette, the only woman capable of capturing his heart. Hunted relentlessly by top FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale, The Dark Knight), Dillinger engages in an escalating game of outrunning and outgunning the FBI, culminating in an explosive, legendary showdown. “It’s a landmark crime saga” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone). Since crime auteur Michael Mann, like his protagonists, plays by his own rules, Public Enemies eschews back story and motivation for a closely-observed, action-packed examination of men at work. FBI supremo J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) kick-starts a nationwide manhunt when he proclaims John Dillinger (Johnny Depp, in top form) Public Enemy #1. Hoover taps Agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) to bring the Tommy Gun-toting bank robber in by any means necessary (the agency also targets Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson). If Dillinger had split the scene then and there, he might have enjoyed a happier fate, but he falls for beautiful coat-check girl Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard, whose open-hearted performance makes her the most sympathetic character in the film). In the end, though, Dillinger is the captain of his own destiny: his loyalty to his girl and his gang overpowers his desire to live free. Though the director also set his first film, Thief, and third series, Crime Story, in his native Chicago, Public Enemies plays more like Heat in Depression-era garb. In that L.A. policier, Al Pacino's cop develops a grudging respect for Robert De Niro's criminal, but letting a lawbreaker go free isn't an option. In this case, however, the tight-li...

Manufacturer: Sony Legacy Brand: Sony Model: 25228244

One Direction s first live DVD features a 73 minute concert of their hit songs, plus never before seen, behind the scenes footage and three music videos ("What Makes You Beautiful","Gotta Be You" and "One Thing").

Manufacturer: Paramount Brand: PARAMOUNT - UNI DIST CORP Model: PRT170014BR

Academy Award® winner Denzel Washington stars in this “riveting and powerful nail-biting thriller1” from Robert Zemeckis, the Academy Award®winning director of Forrest Gump and Cast Away.  Airline pilot Whip Whitaker (Washington) miraculously lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe.  But even as he’s being hailed for his heroic efforts, questions arise as to who or what was really at fault.  Action-packed, engrossing and powerful, Washington’s performance is being hailed as “a triumph2” and one that “will be talked about for years. 3” 1 Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood 2 Richard Corliss, TIME 3 Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Rating:  R For Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Language, Sexuality/Nudity and an Intense Action Sequence

Manufacturer: Universal Studios Home Entertainment Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA) Model: MCA D61124984D

An aspiring nun in pre-WWII Austria leaves the abbey to become a governess for the widower Captain von Trapp's seven children and finds herself falling in love. Beloved worldwide, The Sound of Music includes unforgettable songs including “Edelweiss”, “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” and “The Sound of Music”.