Montserrat Caballe - The Art of Bel Canto
VAI DVD 4308Music of Granados, Donizetti, Bellini. Orchestre Philharmonique de l”ORFT/Cillario. 43 min.
DVD: Black & White, Classical, DVD-Video, NTSC
Company: Video Artists Int’l (2005-01-25)
List Price: $29.95
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Music for Montserrat
On the evening of September 15, 1997, legendary British music producer George Martin (who had risen to prominence with the Beatles) held a benefit concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the small Caribbean island of Montserrat, which had recently been devastated by a volcanic eruption. All of the invited superstars had recorded some of their biggest hits at Montserrat’s Air Studios, which Martin had founded in 1970, and this shared history gives Music for Montserrat an added sense of enjoyment among friends. Despite a few vocal dropouts and forgivable mixing problems, this outstanding concert has been captured with impressive fidelity, and while each artist performs songs appropriate to the occasion, they share the stage (along with a house band, choir, and orchestra conducted by Martin) in brilliant combinations that bring out the best in everyone involved.
The show hits full stride with Mark Knopfler’s exquisite “Brothers in Arms,” which segues nicely into “Money for Nothing” with guest vocals by Sting, who then performs two hits from his Police years. And while Elton John and Eric Clapton form the centerpiece of the concert (especially Clapton and Knopfler’s acoustic “Layla”), Paul McCartney anchors the show with a spectacular four-song conclusion. Phil Collins’s expert drumming is matched throughout by legendary percussionist Ray Kooper, and McCartney’s fully orchestrated “Golden Slumbers” is a genuine show-stopper, followed by a “Hey Jude” sing-along with everyone on stage. They all follow McCartney’s lead for a rockin’ rendition of “Kansas City” (which the Beatles had performed as early as 1960), by which time Music for Montserrat had given its royal audience a show they would never forget. –Jeff Shannon
Director: Julia Knowles
DVD: Color, Compilation, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Company: Eagle Rock Ent (2004-07-27)
List Price: $14.98
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The Orphanage [Blu-ray]
![The Orphanage [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ss19m5UHL._SL160_.jpg)
It’s only his first film, but Spain’s Juan Antonio Bayona has already figured out the secret to a successful supernatural thriller: emphasize character over special effects. Like Walter Salles’s Dark Water and Alejandro Amenábar’s The Others, The Orphanage pivots on a pretty woman and an unusual child. When her old orphanage goes on the market, Laura (Belén Rueda, Amenábar’s The Sea Inside) and Carlos (Fernando Cayo) settle in with their son, Simón (Roger Príncep). Once acclimated to the remote seaside surroundings, they plan to re-open it as a home for special-needs children. Meanwhile, their seven-year-old doesn’t know he’s adopted or that he has a life-threatening illness. He does, however, have a lot of imaginary playmates. When Simón disappears without a trace, his parents contact the police, but to no avail. Because Laura has been hearing odd noises and having strange visions, they proceed to consult a medium. Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin, speaking perfect Spanish) is convinced they aren’t alone. Carlos has his doubts, but Laura makes like a detective and revisits her childhood–through photographs, home movies, and exploration of the spooky stone manor–to determine who or what abducted her son. Produced and presented by Guillermo Del Toro, The Orphanage is less fanciful than his works, though it does bear a vague resemblance to the ghostly Devil’s Backbone. There are a few gory make-up effects, but Bayona mostly preys on our fear of the unknown to craft a first-rate fright fest. –Kathleen C. Fennessy
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Blu-ray: Anamorphic, Color, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled, Widescreen
Company: New Line Home Video (2008-04-22)
List Price: $35.99
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Diabolique (Criterion Collection Spine #35)
Legend has it that Henri-Georges Clouzot beat out Alfred Hitchcock to secure the rights to this novel, which proved to be a veritable blueprint for an icy masterpiece of murder, mystery, and suspense. Véra Clouzot plays the sickly wife of a callous headmaster of a provincial boarding school going to seed, and the commanding Simone Signoret is the headmaster’s mistreated mistress. Together they plot and carry out his murder, a brutal drowning that director Clouzot documents in chilly detail, but the corpse disappears, and a nosy detective starts sniffing around the grounds as threatening notes taunt the women. Clouzot’s thriller is as precise and accomplished a work as anything in Hitchcock’s canon, a film of grueling suspense and startling shocks in an overcast, gray world of decay, but his icy manipulations lack the human dimension and emotional resonance of the master of suspense. The film has been accused of being misanthropic by many critics, and Clouzot’s attitude toward his characters is bitter at best, contemptuous at worst. The viewer is left on the outside looking in, but the razor precision and terrifying twists deliver a sleek, bleak spectacle worthy of attention. –Sean Axmaker
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
DVD: Black & White, Color, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Company: Criterion (1999-01-26)
ISBN: 0780021940
List Price: $29.95
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Montserrat Flag Polyester 3 ft. x 5 ft.
3 x 5 ft Polyester flag with 2 brass grommets. These polyester flags not recommended for prolonged outdoor use. For outdoor use, we recommend our nylon flags.
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Company: SHOPZEUS
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Robin and Marian
This underrated Richard Lester film is really a classic–and one of the most romantic movies ever made. Working from James Goldman’s script, Lester casts Sean Connery as an aged Robin Hood, returned after years away at the Crusades with an increasingly mad King Richard (Richard Harris). Robin and Little John (a very funny Nicol Williamson) return to find that the sheriff of Nottingham (Robert Shaw) is up to his old nasty tricks–and that Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn) is now a nun. Lester brings the same touch to this period film that he did to The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, blending authenticity with a knowing wink at the conventions of period films. But the heart of this film is the very palpable emotion between Hepburn and Connery (and between Connery and Williamson). The ending is guaranteed three hankies, minimum. –Marshall Fine
DVD: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Company: Sony Pictures (2002-07-16)
ISBN: 0767882636
List Price: $19.94
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Bellini - Norma / Patane, Caballe, Vickers, Veasey, Theatre Antique d’Orange
Director: Pierre Jourdan
DVD: Classical, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Company: Video Artists Int’l (2003-03-11)
List Price: $39.95
Amazon Price: $28.50
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