See What's New on DVD Sample the Nov/Dec issue of Facets' New on DVD and Video online. Browse the latest in DVD releases, Facets’ top picks for the season, a new installment in the “Evolution of Cinema”, and much more. <Read Article>
archive
VALUE GALORE The Facets Freedom ValuePass is a film lover's dream come true! Enjoy unlimited rentals with no late fees or due dates, Cinematheque privileges, VIP invitations to festivals, discounts on DVDs and VHS, and much, much more. <Read Article>MAMA MIA, MAGNANI! Man, she's great. If you are unfamilair with the fabulous Anna Magnani, look no further than Criterion's recent release of Mamma Roma, Pasolini's second film featuring Magnani as a prostitute (with no heart of gold) but who wants a better life for her son. <Read Article>GOOD GUY Director Guy Maddin gives us an example of what he considers a good scene and a bad scene, both involving a piano, an attractive star and a menacing guard, from two distinguished films. Maddin is ALWAYS fun. <Read Article>MUST-SEE VIEWING The chilling and tragic story of a drug-crazed former street kid in Rio who takes a bus and several of its passengers hostage is told in this fascinating documentary due in July 20th. Chosen by Albert Maysles as one of his top ten favorite documentaries of all-time. <Read Article>TOP RENTER If you haven't seen the charming Triplets of Belleville, we can highly recommend this return to hand drawn animation with nice bonuses including a featurette on the "making of" and a music video of that jazzy, catchy, Academy Award nominated song. Rent it today! <Read Article>DOGVILLE DAYS Late August will prove to be a bonanza for fans of Lars von Trier with The Five Obstructions (co-directed by Jorgen Leth) opening theatrically and Dogville hitting video stores at the same time. <Read Article>LEFTY FILMS Love lists? How about a little alternative programming for this year's 4th of July party? From All the President's Men to Zero for Conduct, here's a list of "the best left movies ever made." Most, if not all, of these films are available for rent at Facets... <Read Article>HOT RENTAL The unusually structured (46 surreal, single-shot vignettes) Songs from the Second Floor which proved to be a disaster at the box office is doing brisk business for us as a rental. Winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, read an interview with the talented director here: <Read Article>
SHARIF CHARMS AS IBRAHIM How nice to have the elegant Omar Sharif back to the screen in Monsieur Ibrahim, a gentle and sweet comedy about an isolated young Jewish boy who bonds with an aged Muslim widower. Available for rent and/or sale. <Read Article>FRIED BACON A very underrated horror film shot here in Chicago, Stir of Echoes, is returning in August via a new Special Edition DVD. Kevin Bacon stars as a man seriously disturbed by a spooky, tragic ghost. Chicago looks great and horror fans are in for a treat with many extras. <Read Article>FACETS #1 RENTAL For two weeks in a row, Gaspar Noe's incendiary, difficult-to-watch second feature, Irreversible has been our top renter. The story of a brutal rape (shot in real-time in all its gory detail) is a revenge story told chronologically backwards. <Read Article>FOG OF WAR STILL HOT Political films are flying off the shelves at Facets and none more so than Errol Morris's fine documentary on former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara. Winner of the 2003 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. <Read Article>KILL BILL 2 -- COMING AUGUST The fantastically entertaining Kill Bill Vol. 2 joins the first half of Tarantino's epic story of revenge on August 10th. <Read Article>TWO MORE FROM MASTER MIYAZAKI Admirers of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke will be excited by the releases of two more Miyazaki films, Porco Rosso and Nausicaa: Of the Valley Of The Wind. They are set for video stores in August. <Read Article>GREAT EXTRAS For sale or rent, a monster favorite for fans of Fritz Lang, Criterion outdid themselves on one of the best DVDs of the season. Salivate over all the extra goodies here. <Read Article>
FAB VOICE-OVER Ab Fab remains a popular rental title but did you recognize Jennifer Saunders's voice in the new Shrek 2? Here she talks about her initial dislike for Ab Fab co-star, Dawn French and the fun she had with the Shrek "people". <Read Article>REMEMBERING MARLON Search on "Brando" on the "Search Rentals" section of the Videotheque site to access all the Marlon Brando films we have available for rent. There won't be another one like him. <Read Article>HE'S THE TOP! If you enjoy Delovely, the new Cole Porter biopic starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd and want to learn more about Cole Porter, there's a fairly solid documentary, available for sale or rent. <Read Article>TV SUCKS David Cronenberg's Videodrome just got the Criterion treatment and is heading into stores at the end of August. An early film from the master of nightmare cinema, Videodrome stars the perfect Cronenberg hero, James Woods. Check out the extras here: <Read Article>PAGNOL'S FANNY TRILOGY Beautiful new DVDs of the charming Fanny, Marius and Caesar are in and ready-to-rent at Facets Videotheque. <Read Article>NY: NAKED AND NOIR If you recently joined us for the screening of Jules Dassin's He Who Must Die, and you are now a devoted Dassin fan, you may be interested in his influential, semi-documentary style shoot of New York and its people. Rent the noir murder storyThe Naked City today! <Read Article>LUPINO MEETS MAMOULIAN Pioneering female director, actress Ida Lupino, teams up with underrated director Rouben Mamoulian in the little seen screen gem The Gay Desperado. Available for rent today! <Read Article>
Available Now at the Facets Videotheque
The Mario Bava Collection: Volume 1 Five of the Italian horror maestro's landmark films are collected in this long-awaited set. <Read Article>Harvest Time Marina Razbezhkina's gorgeous debut film tells the story of a Russian woman living on a collective farm in the aftermath of WWII. <Read Article>Gabrielle In Patrice Chereau's fine period drama, Isabelle Huppert plays the ravishing Gabrielle, whose wealthy husband treats her as if she were merely a possession. That is, until she abruptly leaves him for another man. <Read Article>When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts Spike Lee looks at the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in this epic documentary. "The sheer volume of suffering and misery chronicled by the film is crushing" (The New York Times). <Read Article>Preston Sturges: The Filmmaker Collection Seven of screenwriter-director Preston Sturges' humorous and enduring screwball comedies are collected in this essential set. <Read Article>Been Rich All My Life An engaging doc about the Silver Belles, who tap-danced at some of Harlem's most prestigious haunts. Now in their 80s and 90s, the engaging and charismatic dancers are a treasure-trove of knowledge about the Harlem Renaissance. <Read Article>Fallen Idol The first of three collaborations between director Carol Reed and Graham Greene is the story of a boy who learns that his butler, whom he idolizes, is accused of having murdered his wife.
A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>Stalker Tarkovsky's eerie, hypnotic sci-fi film follows a three-man expedition into a surreal, blistered wasteland that's only penetrated by special guides called "Stalkers." <Read Article>Mongolian Ping Pong A Mongolian boy and his friends find an ordinary ping pong ball and embark on a journey to find the source of the mysterious unknown object in this impressive feature. <Read Article>Body Heat A sexy, haunting film that echoes the film noir dramas of the 1940's with a flare of irony and passion. Starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, it is the directorial debut of Lawrence Kasdan <Read Article>When the Sea Rises Set in a rural-industrial zone of northern France, this award-winning, offbeat road movie follows a traveling performance artist who comes under the spell of a young drifter. <Read Article>Reds: 25th Anniversary Edition A great American film. At its center, the passionate love affair between legendary journalist and American socialist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and feminist author Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). <Read Article>A Praire Home Companion Robert Altman's endearing, elegaic paean to radio and a vanishing past finds him joining forces with Garrison Keillor and a characteristically star-studded ensemble cast. <Read Article>Ju-On 2 Not to be confused with the American remake, this J-Horror sequel depicts the chilling effects of a curse caused by the murder of a mother and the possession of her young son. <Read Article>Playtime Called one of the funniest men in the world by the New York Times, Jacques Tati shows his genius in this hilarious comedy and satire on coping with the modern world.
A Criterion Collection edition! <Read Article>Shockumentary Extreme Collection This Mondo Cane double feature includes a pair of notorious films from Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi: Africa Addio and Addio Zio Tom. <Read Article>Duck Season Fourteen-year-old best friends Flama and Moko prepare for the perfect afternoon of indulgent, lazy fun in Fernando Eimbcke's likable coming-of-age tale. Unfortunately, plans involving video games and free pizza are thwarted by unexpected curveballs from pesky neighbors, obstinate delivery drivers, and power outages. <Read Article>Seduced and Abandoned One of the funniest Italian films ever--a comedy about the Sicilian code of honor, in which an unexpected chain of events is set in motion after an equally unexpected seduction, with truly hilarious results. <Read Article>Boy of Baghdad Sabah Al-Moswi's eye-opening documentary explores the realities of life on the ground in post-Saddam Iraq from the perspective of a precocious twelve-year-old boy. <Read Article>L'Enfant (The Child) Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's powerful, Cannes-winning drama looks at a young couple eeking out a hand-to-mouth existence in a bleak, industrial Belgian town. Their newborn son is a cause of worry and frustration until a horrifying decision is made to capitalize on their only asset. <Read Article>Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales Made between 1962 and 1972, this elegant cycle of tales by French New Wave veteran Eric Rohmer portrays individuals in the throes of temptation. <Read Article>The Jayne Mansfield Collection This deluxe boxed set finds platinum blonde goddess Jayne Mansfield appearing in three of her most glamorous screen roles. <Read Article>Inside Man A surprisingly mainstream venture for Spike Lee, this tidy heist thriller succeeds as a top-tier popcorn movie, while also addressing the filmmaker's longstanding interest in how individuals react and interact under pressure. <Read Article>What the Bleep Do We Know? Part narrative, part documentary, and wholly unique, this is an imaginative, New Age-themed foray into the uncertain quantum field - the hidden world that operates behind what we consider to be our normal, everyday reality. A new 3-DVD edition! <Read Article>The Mr. Moto Collection Inimitable screen icon Peter Lorre brings J.P. Marquand's shrewd detective Mr. Moto to life in this collection of suspenseful mysteries. A 4-DVD set! <Read Article>Third Generation A controversial late-career masterpiece from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this astute political farce follows a band of bourgeois German radicals as they plot to kidnap the director of a multinational corporation. Even as their plan crumbles under government scrutiny, the inheritors of the Baader-Meinhof mantle steadfastly stick to their guns. <Read Article>Born in '45 Painter and documentary filmmaker Jurgen Bottcher's only narrative feature, made in 1965, was banned and not shown in German theaters until 1990. The film tells the seemingly apolitical story of a newly married couple that considers a divorce when the husband becomes restless and takes a private journey on his motorcycle. <Read Article>The Black Swan Tyrone Power stars in the original pirate adventure, winner of the 1942 Oscar for color cinematography. <Read Article>Electric Edwardians: The Lost Films of Mitchell & Kenyon This astonishing collection of short films, shot between 1900-1913, captures individuals at work and at play in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. <Read Article>Cops Vs. Thugs Kinji Fukasaku is at his punishing best in a yakuza thriller that treats crime and punishment in 1960s Japan without a trace of sentimentality. When a crime boss executes a bold land-grab, he upsets the tenuous alliance between gangsters, crooked cops, and bought politicians. At the center of the storm is a detective unafraid to ratchet up the body count. <Read Article>Magic "Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto chango, and now he is me!" That's the mantra spoken by Fats, a ventriloquist dummy with a mind of his own, in this eerie puppet horror movie by Richard Attenborough. Stars Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margret. <Read Article>Wolf Creek All the more disturbing for being based on true events, this extremely violent horror film follows three friends on holiday in Australia's Wolf Creek National Park. What begins as a carefree excursion turns into a hellish nightmare when a mysterious stranger arrives to help the trio with car trouble. <Read Article>
Flags of Our Fathers A mature Clint Eastwood directs this affecting adaptation of James Bradley and Ron Power's myth-busting book about the raising of the American flag at the battle of Iwo Jima. <Read Article>Sanjuro The hero of Kurosawa'sYojimbo returns to help a group of very earnest, very green, very young samurai rid their clan of corruption.
A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>Lady in the Water M. Night Shyamalan once again delivers the unexpected in his modern fairy tale about a water nymph who turns an apartment complex upside-down. <Read Article>Women's Prison This controversial Iranian production confronts crime, drugs, prostitution, and homosexuality through the conflict between a woman imprisoned for killing her stepfather and a new warden out to set an example. <Read Article>An Inconvenient Truth This startling documentary combines a well-researched, uncharacteristically riveting speech by longtime environmentalist Al Gore with overwhelming visuals in order to help explain the existence and impact of global warming. <Read Article>Allen Ginsberg: An Elegy This revealing portrait of the American Beat poet, Buddhist, and countercultural hero includes his last television interview before he died in 1997, as well as extraordinary footage of his final days. <Read Article>Blood of My Brothers Told from an Iraqi's point of view, and featuring harrowing footage shot in a Shiite district of Baghdad, this documentary tells of a young man who dreams of revenge after his brother is shot and killed by an American patrol. <Read Article>Anna Karenina Based on Tolstoy's tale of tragic passion and human morality, this Russian production traces the path of a woman who pays a very high price for following her heart. <Read Article>Hands Over the City Rod Steiger gives a towering performance as an avaricious land developer seeking to make a killing in post-war Italian real estate speculation in this shrewd work of social realism.
A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>An American Haunting Based on the true story of the Bell Witch, an alleged invisible spectre that haunted a family in Adams Station, Tennessee between 1817 and 1821, this gothic creeper features performances by Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, and James D'Arcy. <Read Article>Edgar G. Ulmer: The Man Off-Screen This star-studded documentary pays tribute to film director Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972), best known for The Black Cat, Detour, The Man From Planet X, and other low-budget gems. <Read Article>Billy Wilder Speaks This lively program uses clips, photographs, artwork, and copious interviews with director Billy Wilder to recount his career - one of the most successful in Hollywood history. <Read Article>Land of Plenty Wim Wenders' 2004 feature was conceived as an examination of America's post-9/11 transformation, and its twin narratives follow characters who react to the attacks with different manifestations of patriotism. <Read Article>Art School Confidential Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) reunite for a bitterly hilarious satire, based on Clowes' own comic about an idealistic student's rude awakening. <Read Article>Amarcord A film which breathes freedom--a nostalgic, fantastic and funny reminiscence of growing up in Fellini's home town of Rimini--made, Fellini said, to finish with youth and tenderness.
A Criterion Collection edition! <Read Article>Iron Island An ambitious and critically acclaimed film, about an abandoned oil tanker that houses homeless squatters from Iran's Sunni-Arab minority, is both a wistful drama and a clever allegory about the politics of survival in the Middle East. <Read Article>Too Young To Die In this tenderly wrought, festival award-winning Korean film, an elderly widow and widower embark on a robust and remarkably active love affair despite their advanced age. <Read Article>One Take Only This stylish, manic-paced thriller from Oxide Pang delves into the dangerous, doomed lives of two young Bangkok street urchins who find love while navigating the city's underground drug world. <Read Article>Steppenwolf Max von Sydow and Dominique Sanda star in this adaptation of Herman Hesse's classic novel about a man's internal struggle to find peace within himself. <Read Article>Don't Tell An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this psychological drama follows a woman whose charmed existence is shattered by recurring memories of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. <Read Article>Do You Like Hitchcock? Horror maestro Dario Argento salutes the master of suspense in this made-for-TV outing that slyly quotes scenes from Hitchcock's oeuvre. <Read Article>Manderlay This controversial shot across the bow is the second in Lars von Trier's proposed trilogy of films to cynically skewer American hypocrisy. Shot in the same skeletal, stage-bound manner as Dogville, the film picks up where that screed left off, with Grace and her father wandering into an early 20th century Southern community that still embraces slavery. <Read Article>Brick Rian Johnson's original debut is the rare film that manages to deliver nuanced feeling using a quirky, postmodern conceit. Set at a contemporary California high school, the film follows a resourceful teen determined to solve his girlfriend's murder. <Read Article>Putney Swope This outrageous satire from director Robert Downey was one of the first films to truly earn the description "cult film." A token black member of the board accidentally becomes chairman of a conservative ad agency, transforming the firm into "Truth and Soul, Inc." <Read Article>V for Vendetta Part political allegory, part popcorn entertainment, this action-packed blockbuster - set in a menacing, futuristic Britain where a totalitarian government rules with an iron fist - follows an enigmatic revolutionary out to topple the regime. <Read Article>Roma Citta Libera An overlooked accomplishment of Italian Neo-Realism, the film tells of four strangers in war-torn Rome who are brought together under trying circumstances. <Read Article>And Now the Screaming Starts Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom and Patrick Magee star in this enjoyable haunted house shocker from Amicus, Hammer's greatest rival in the British horror field. <Read Article>Yi Yi Edward Yang's profound and beautiful film conveys the powerful emotional truths of everyday life as it depicts the struggles, hopes and dreams of a middle-class family in Taipei.
A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>Beyond the Rocks Long considered lost, a print of this 1922 silent melodrama was rediscovered in a private collection more than eighty years after it first delighted audiences with Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino--two of the era's biggest stars--in their only screen pairing. <Read Article>Young Thugs: Innocent Blood / Nostalgia A double feature of hyperkinetic, blood-red action films from Japanese cult icon Takashi Miike are included on one DVD. <Read Article>Match Point Woody Allen's acutely observed, immensely satisfying film about a love triangle in London was praised by critics as his best film in years, and possibly decades. <Read Article>The Laurel and Hardy Collection This collection contains five hours of fun with one of the greatest comedy film duos in history. <Read Article>
Tokyo Trash Baby Ryuichi Hiroki's entry in the Love Cinema series is simultaneously a sly critique of consumer culture and a breezy tale of hopeless urban romance. <Read Article>Little Miss Sunshine Smart dialogue, dynamic characters, and tearfully funny moments combine in this sometimes cute, often times melancholy road movie about a family heading cross-country to take a young girl to a beauty pageant. <Read Article>A Scanner Darkly Richard Linklater continues his Rotoscope animation experiment (following 2001's Waking Life) with this paranoid sci-fi tale adapted from a 1977 Philip K. Dick novel. <Read Article>Scoop Woody Allen continues his London sabbatical with this light-and-easy, supernatural detective farce. Allen's latest muse Scarlett Johansson stars as an aspiring journalist who's given the scoop of a lifetime by the ghost of a dead muckracker: that a politician's son (Hugh Jackman) is an infamous murderer. <Read Article>The Double Life of Veronique Two remarkably similar women, in Warsaw and Paris, are acutely aware of each other's existence in Krzysztof Kieslowski's film about the linkage of souls. A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>Wordplay This exuberant ode to the creators and solvers of The New York Times crossword puzzle is a cleverly constructed and remarkably suspenseful documentary. <Read Article>Blood Tea and Red String Called "a David Lynchean fever dream on Beatrix Potter terrain" (Variety), this stop-motion fairy tale chronicles a struggle between aristocratic mice and ursine creatures who dwell within the trunk of an oak tree. <Read Article>The Road to Guantanamo Michael Winterbottom won a Silver Bear at Berlin for this harrowing docudrama about a trio Muslims who were held at Guantanamo Bay for two years without charge. <Read Article>Clean, Shaven Peter Greene stars as a man desperately hoping to find his lost daughter in Lodge Kerrigan's searing debut.
A Criterion Collection edition! <Read Article>Norman McLaren: The Masters Edition This remarkable collection includes 58 of Norman McLaren's experimental works, ranging from early shorts to his final film for the National Film Board of Canada in 1983. <Read Article>The Shooting Party An all-star British cast is featured in this complex film about the personalities, intrigues and conflicts that happen in the course of a weekend shooting party in 1913. <Read Article>Hail Mary Jean-Luc Godard's provocative account of the Immaculate Conception was picketed when it opened at Facets and other venues, and was condemned by Pope John Paul II for "deeply wounding the religious sentiments of believers". <Read Article>Marie Antoinette Norma Shearer is the Austrian princess who found being the queen of France had its down side as well in this lavish 1938 MGM production. <Read Article>Our Brand Is Crisis This eye-opening glimpse at the Americanization of international politics follows a crack team of U.S. Democratic political consultants as they strategize for a struggling Bolivian presidential candidate <Read Article>The Swindle Claude Chabrol's fiftieth theatrical feature proved that this master of intrigue had lost none of his touch after nearly forty years of filmmaking. Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault star as grifters who decide to take on an international money launderer in the ultimate sting. <Read Article>Double Indemnity A great Billy Wilder film in which "every turn and twist is exactly calculated and achieves its effect with the simplest of means; this shrewd, smooth, tawdry thriller is one of the high points of 40s films" (Pauline Kael). <Read Article>Kicking and Screaming Four young men in their 20s discover there's not much to life after college in Noah Baumbach's indie sleeper. It's a scenario rife with comic possibilities, where romance and the trauma of getting on with life seem overwhelming and all-encompassing. <Read Article>Hunger Per Oscarsson gives his greatest performance as Pontus, a starving writer in Norway circa 1890, in Henning Carlsen's filming of a Knut Hamsun novel. Winner of the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. <Read Article>Henri Langlois: Phantom of the Cinematheque This sprawling documentary examines the life and work of Henri Langlois, the founder of the legendary Cinematheque Francaise, a pioneer in film preservation, and a father figure to the directors of the French New Wave. <Read Article>Eternity and a Day From master filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos comes a poetic, haunting and abundantly beautiful film (and 1998 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner), starring Bruno Ganz as a dying man trying to make peace with his past. <Read Article>The Hidden Blade Nominated for 12 Academy Awards in its native Japan, this historical drama follows a displaced swordsmen trying to hew to a traditional way of life in a rapidly modernizing Japan. <Read Article>The Lost City For his directorial debut, Cuban native Andy Garcia helms a heartfelt portrait of an ephemeral moment in his home nation's history. <Read Article>How Art Made the World Spanning five continents and some 100,000 years, this five-part series delves into the open-ended question of why our world looks the way it does. <Read Article>After the Rain Winner of 8 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture, this uplifting historical drama is based on a short story by Shugoro Yamamoto, with a script by Akira Kurosawa. <Read Article>The War Game/Culloden Two films from Peter Watkins in one package: The War Game, an unnerving documentary-style film showing what could happen if Britain came under a nuclear attack, and Culloden, a reconstruction of the 1746 conflict that marked the last pitch battle to take place on British soil. <Read Article>A Canterbury Tale This modern parallel to Chaucer's enduring tale dramatizes the effects of that story's countryside on an American G.I. and three Brits who find themselves en route to the hallowed cathedral on the same Pilgrims Way taken by travelers some 600 years ago.
A Criterion Collection Edition. <Read Article>Koko: A Talking Gorilla Barbet Schroeder's up-close look at a gorilla trained by a Stanford University psychologist to communicate via sign language captures the excitement, charm and controversy surrounding this groundbreaking project.
A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>The British Horror Collection Four low-budget horror yarns from the mind of British producer Richard Gordon that are guaranteed to bring on the creeps and produce an unlimited supply of cheap thrills. <Read Article>Cache Michael Haneke continues a string of darkly provocative, intelligent dramas with this tautly paced, menacingly atmospheric thriller. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a couple raising a young son in a sunny, affluent household. When enigmatic video tapes and drawings begin arriving at their doorstep, the family finds their complacent existence shattered by unearthed secrets from the husband's past. <Read Article>Robert Altman Collection Four Seventies films from maverick director Robert Altman are featured in this exclusive 4-DVD set. <Read Article>Games of Love and Chance This robust, Cesar-winning drama is set in a Parisian housing project, where street-wise teenagers balance their hopes and dreams against the sometimes grim realities of day-to-day life. <Read Article>The Ten Commandments De Mille's extravagant spectacle remake of his own epic cost millions, and made Charlton Heston synonymous with Moses.
Brand Upon the Brain! This surreal black-white silent film from Guy Maddin enjoyed a limited tour of art-house theaters in 2006-2007, boasting a live orchestra, Foley artists, and celebrity narrators employed to help tell the imagined story of Maddin's nightmarish childhood at an isolated lighthouse-turned-orphanage. A Criterion Collection edition. <Read Article>The Roe's Room In Lech Majewski's untamed fusion of musical, abstract, and narrative film, a mother, father, and son are living together in a confined urban apartment. To combat the banality of it all, the boy lets his imagination run wild. <Read Article>
Eclipse Series 11: Two Masterpieces by Larisa Shepitko Two features by the late Ukrainian-born filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, Wings and The Ascent, are featured in this 2-DVD Criterion Collection Eclipse Series set. <Read Article>Glass Lips Continuing to deal in the experimental, Polish-born filmmaker Lech Majewski creates a dialogue-free meditation on the interrelated nature of art, religion, and trauma as experienced by a young mental patient. <Read Article>
Poisoned By Polonium Russian documentarian Andrei Nekrasov presents a charged look at the 2006 poisoning death of exiled former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, speculating that the Kremlin orchestrated the attack in retaliation for his open criticism of Putin's regime. <Read Article>Gospel According to Harry In this surreal and soapy Polish-American coproduction by visionary filmmaker Lech Majewski, the marriage of Viggo Mortensen and Jennifer Rubin slowly deteriorates against the backdrop of the California desert. <Read Article>
Available Now! New Releases at the Videotheque
Half Moon From Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi comes this "fateful and funny, haunting and magical" (New York Times) road movie about a Kurdish musician who travels with his sons from Iran to Iraq to perform for the first time after the fall of Saddam. <Read Article>
The Simpsons Movie Everyone's favorite cartoon family comes to the big screen in grand fashion to follow the mayhem that results when Homer falls for a pig. <Read Article>
12:08 East of Bucharest Director Corneliu Porumboiu's humorous, Cannes award-winning film, set sixteen years after the fall of Ceausescu's communist regime and just days before Christmas, follows a town debating their involvement in the revolution. <Read Article>
COMING SOON
BURNING BUSH Michael Moore's Palme d'Or winning (Cannes Film Festival) documentary hit comes to DVD early October just in time to get eve
Sample the Nov/Dec issue of Facets' New on DVD and Video online. Browse the latest in DVD releases, Facets’ top picks for the season, a new installment in the “Evolution of Cinema”, and much more.
The Facets Freedom ValuePass is a film lover's dream come true! Enjoy unlimited rentals with no late fees or due dates, Cinematheque privileges, VIP invitations to festivals, discounts on DVDs and VHS, and much, much more.
Man, she's great. If you are unfamilair with the fabulous Anna Magnani, look no further than Criterion's recent release of Mamma Roma, Pasolini's second film featuring Magnani as a prostitute (with no heart of gold) but who wants a better life for her son.
The chilling and tragic story of a drug-crazed former street kid in Rio who takes a bus and several of its passengers hostage is told in this fascinating documentary due in July 20th. Chosen by Albert Maysles as one of his top ten favorite documentaries of all-time. 
If you haven't seen the charming Triplets of Belleville, we can highly recommend this return to hand drawn animation with nice bonuses including a featurette on the "making of" and a music video of that jazzy, catchy, Academy Award nominated song. Rent it today!
Love lists? How about a little alternative programming for this year's 4th of July party? From All the President's Men to Zero for Conduct, here's a list of "the best left movies ever made." Most, if not all, of these films are available for rent at Facets...
The unusually structured (46 surreal, single-shot vignettes) Songs from the Second Floor
How nice to have the elegant Omar Sharif back to the screen in Monsieur Ibrahim, a gentle and sweet comedy about an isolated young Jewish boy who bonds with an aged Muslim widower. Available for rent and/or sale.
A very underrated horror film shot here in Chicago, Stir of Echoes, is returning in August via a new Special Edition DVD. Kevin Bacon stars as a man seriously disturbed by a spooky, tragic ghost. Chicago looks great and horror fans are in for a treat with many extras.
The fantastically entertaining Kill Bill Vol. 2 joins the first half of Tarantino's epic story of revenge on August 10th. 
Admirers of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke will be excited by the releases of two more Miyazaki films, Porco Rosso and Nausicaa: Of the Valley Of The Wind. They are set for video stores in August.
For sale or rent, a monster favorite for fans of Fritz Lang, Criterion outdid themselves on one of the best DVDs of the season. Salivate over all the extra goodies here.
Ab Fab remains a popular rental title but did you recognize Jennifer Saunders's voice in the new Shrek 2? Here she talks about her initial dislike for Ab Fab co-star, Dawn French and the fun she had with the Shrek "people". 
Search on "Brando" on the "Search Rentals" section of the Videotheque site to access all the Marlon Brando films we have available for rent. There won't be another one like him.
If you enjoy Delovely, the new Cole Porter biopic starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd and want to learn more about Cole Porter, there's a fairly solid documentary, available for sale or rent.
Beautiful new DVDs of the charming Fanny, Marius and Caesar are in and ready-to-rent at Facets Videotheque. 
If you recently joined us for the screening of Jules Dassin's He Who Must Die, and you are now a devoted Dassin fan, you may be interested in his influential, semi-documentary style shoot of New York and its people. Rent the noir murder storyThe Naked City today!
Pioneering female director, actress Ida Lupino, teams up with underrated director Rouben Mamoulian in the little seen screen gem The Gay Desperado. Available for rent today!
Five of the Italian horror maestro's landmark films are collected in this long-awaited set. 
Marina Razbezhkina's gorgeous debut film tells the story of a Russian woman living on a collective farm in the aftermath of WWII. 
In Patrice Chereau's fine period drama, Isabelle Huppert plays the ravishing Gabrielle, whose wealthy husband treats her as if she were merely a possession. That is, until she abruptly leaves him for another man. 
Spike Lee looks at the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in this epic documentary. "The sheer volume of suffering and misery chronicled by the film is crushing" (The New York Times).
Seven of screenwriter-director Preston Sturges' humorous and enduring screwball comedies are collected in this essential set.
An engaging doc about the Silver Belles, who tap-danced at some of Harlem's most prestigious haunts. Now in their 80s and 90s, the engaging and charismatic dancers are a treasure-trove of knowledge about the Harlem Renaissance.
The first of three collaborations between director Carol Reed and Graham Greene is the story of a boy who learns that his butler, whom he idolizes, is accused of having murdered his wife.
Tarkovsky's eerie, hypnotic sci-fi film follows a three-man expedition into a surreal, blistered wasteland that's only penetrated by special guides called "Stalkers."
A Mongolian boy and his friends find an ordinary ping pong ball and embark on a journey to find the source of the mysterious unknown object in this impressive feature.
A sexy, haunting film that echoes the film noir dramas of the 1940's with a flare of irony and passion. Starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner, it is the directorial debut of Lawrence Kasdan
Set in a rural-industrial zone of northern France, this award-winning, offbeat road movie follows a traveling performance artist who comes under the spell of a young drifter. 
A great American film. At its center, the passionate love affair between legendary journalist and American socialist John Reed (Warren Beatty) and feminist author Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). 
Robert Altman's endearing, elegaic paean to radio and a vanishing past finds him joining forces with Garrison Keillor and a characteristically star-studded ensemble cast. 
Not to be confused with the American remake, this J-Horror sequel depicts the chilling effects of a curse caused by the murder of a mother and the possession of her young son. 
Called one of the funniest men in the world by the New York Times, Jacques Tati shows his genius in this hilarious comedy and satire on coping with the modern world.
This Mondo Cane double feature includes a pair of notorious films from Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi: Africa Addio and Addio Zio Tom. 
Fourteen-year-old best friends Flama and Moko prepare for the perfect afternoon of indulgent, lazy fun in Fernando Eimbcke's likable coming-of-age tale. Unfortunately, plans involving video games and free pizza are thwarted by unexpected curveballs from pesky neighbors, obstinate delivery drivers, and power outages. 
One of the funniest Italian films ever--a comedy about the Sicilian code of honor, in which an unexpected chain of events is set in motion after an equally unexpected seduction, with truly hilarious results.
Sabah Al-Moswi's eye-opening documentary explores the realities of life on the ground in post-Saddam Iraq from the perspective of a precocious twelve-year-old boy. 
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's powerful, Cannes-winning drama looks at a young couple eeking out a hand-to-mouth existence in a bleak, industrial Belgian town. Their newborn son is a cause of worry and frustration until a horrifying decision is made to capitalize on their only asset. 
Made between 1962 and 1972, this elegant cycle of tales by French New Wave veteran Eric Rohmer portrays individuals in the throes of temptation. 
This deluxe boxed set finds platinum blonde goddess Jayne Mansfield appearing in three of her most glamorous screen roles. 
A surprisingly mainstream venture for Spike Lee, this tidy heist thriller succeeds as a top-tier popcorn movie, while also addressing the filmmaker's longstanding interest in how individuals react and interact under pressure. 
Part narrative, part documentary, and wholly unique, this is an imaginative, New Age-themed foray into the uncertain quantum field - the hidden world that operates behind what we consider to be our normal, everyday reality. A new 3-DVD edition!
Inimitable screen icon Peter Lorre brings J.P. Marquand's shrewd detective Mr. Moto to life in this collection of suspenseful mysteries. A 4-DVD set!
A controversial late-career masterpiece from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, this astute political farce follows a band of bourgeois German radicals as they plot to kidnap the director of a multinational corporation. Even as their plan crumbles under government scrutiny, the inheritors of the Baader-Meinhof mantle steadfastly stick to their guns. 
Painter and documentary filmmaker Jurgen Bottcher's only narrative feature, made in 1965, was banned and not shown in German theaters until 1990. The film tells the seemingly apolitical story of a newly married couple that considers a divorce when the husband becomes restless and takes a private journey on his motorcycle. 
Tyrone Power stars in the original pirate adventure, winner of the 1942 Oscar for color cinematography. 
This astonishing collection of short films, shot between 1900-1913, captures individuals at work and at play in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. 
Kinji Fukasaku is at his punishing best in a yakuza thriller that treats crime and punishment in 1960s Japan without a trace of sentimentality. When a crime boss executes a bold land-grab, he upsets the tenuous alliance between gangsters, crooked cops, and bought politicians. At the center of the storm is a detective unafraid to ratchet up the body count. 
"Abracadabra, I sit on his knee. Presto chango, and now he is me!" That's the mantra spoken by Fats, a ventriloquist dummy with a mind of his own, in this eerie puppet horror movie by Richard Attenborough. Stars Anthony Hopkins and Ann-Margret. 
All the more disturbing for being based on true events, this extremely violent horror film follows three friends on holiday in Australia's Wolf Creek National Park. What begins as a carefree excursion turns into a hellish nightmare when a mysterious stranger arrives to help the trio with car trouble. 
A mature Clint Eastwood directs this affecting adaptation of James Bradley and Ron Power's myth-busting book about the raising of the American flag at the battle of Iwo Jima. 
The hero of Kurosawa's 
M. Night Shyamalan once again delivers the unexpected in his modern fairy tale about a water nymph who turns an apartment complex upside-down.
This controversial Iranian production confronts crime, drugs, prostitution, and homosexuality through the conflict between a woman imprisoned for killing her stepfather and a new warden out to set an example.
This startling documentary combines a well-researched, uncharacteristically riveting speech by longtime environmentalist Al Gore with overwhelming visuals in order to help explain the existence and impact of global warming. 
This revealing portrait of the American Beat poet, Buddhist, and countercultural hero includes his last television interview before he died in 1997, as well as extraordinary footage of his final days.
Told from an Iraqi's point of view, and featuring harrowing footage shot in a Shiite district of Baghdad, this documentary tells of a young man who dreams of revenge after his brother is shot and killed by an American patrol. 
Based on Tolstoy's tale of tragic passion and human morality, this Russian production traces the path of a woman who pays a very high price for following her heart.
Rod Steiger gives a towering performance as an avaricious land developer seeking to make a killing in post-war Italian real estate speculation in this shrewd work of social realism.
Based on the true story of the Bell Witch, an alleged invisible spectre that haunted a family in Adams Station, Tennessee between 1817 and 1821, this gothic creeper features performances by Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, and James D'Arcy.
This star-studded documentary pays tribute to film director Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972), best known for The Black Cat, Detour, The Man From Planet X, and other low-budget gems.
This lively program uses clips, photographs, artwork, and copious interviews with director Billy Wilder to recount his career - one of the most successful in Hollywood history. 
Wim Wenders' 2004 feature was conceived as an examination of America's post-9/11 transformation, and its twin narratives follow characters who react to the attacks with different manifestations of patriotism. 
Terry Zwigoff and Daniel Clowes (
A film which breathes freedom--a nostalgic, fantastic and funny reminiscence of growing up in Fellini's home town of Rimini--made, Fellini said, to finish with youth and tenderness.
An ambitious and critically acclaimed film, about an abandoned oil tanker that houses homeless squatters from Iran's Sunni-Arab minority, is both a wistful drama and a clever allegory about the politics of survival in the Middle East. 
In this tenderly wrought, festival award-winning Korean film, an elderly widow and widower embark on a robust and remarkably active love affair despite their advanced age. 
This stylish, manic-paced thriller from Oxide Pang delves into the dangerous, doomed lives of two young Bangkok street urchins who find love while navigating the city's underground drug world. 
Max von Sydow and Dominique Sanda star in this adaptation of Herman Hesse's classic novel about a man's internal struggle to find peace within himself. 
An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this psychological drama follows a woman whose charmed existence is shattered by recurring memories of sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. 
Horror maestro Dario Argento salutes the master of suspense in this made-for-TV outing that slyly quotes scenes from Hitchcock's oeuvre.
This controversial shot across the bow is the second in Lars von Trier's proposed trilogy of films to cynically skewer American hypocrisy. Shot in the same skeletal, stage-bound manner as 
Rian Johnson's original debut is the rare film that manages to deliver nuanced feeling using a quirky, postmodern conceit. Set at a contemporary California high school, the film follows a resourceful teen determined to solve his girlfriend's murder. 
This outrageous satire from director Robert Downey was one of the first films to truly earn the description "cult film." A token black member of the board accidentally becomes chairman of a conservative ad agency, transforming the firm into "Truth and Soul, Inc." 
Part political allegory, part popcorn entertainment, this action-packed blockbuster - set in a menacing, futuristic Britain where a totalitarian government rules with an iron fist - follows an enigmatic revolutionary out to topple the regime.
An overlooked accomplishment of Italian Neo-Realism, the film tells of four strangers in war-torn Rome who are brought together under trying circumstances. 
Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom and Patrick Magee star in this enjoyable haunted house shocker from Amicus, Hammer's greatest rival in the British horror field.
Edward Yang's profound and beautiful film conveys the powerful emotional truths of everyday life as it depicts the struggles, hopes and dreams of a middle-class family in Taipei.
Long considered lost, a print of this 1922 silent melodrama was rediscovered in a private collection more than eighty years after it first delighted audiences with Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino--two of the era's biggest stars--in their only screen pairing. 
A double feature of hyperkinetic, blood-red action films from Japanese cult icon Takashi Miike are included on one DVD. 
Woody Allen's acutely observed, immensely satisfying film about a love triangle in London was praised by critics as his best film in years, and possibly decades. 
This collection contains five hours of fun with one of the greatest comedy film duos in history.
Ryuichi Hiroki's entry in the Love Cinema series is simultaneously a sly critique of consumer culture and a breezy tale of hopeless urban romance. 
Smart dialogue, dynamic characters, and tearfully funny moments combine in this sometimes cute, often times melancholy road movie about a family heading cross-country to take a young girl to a beauty pageant.
Richard Linklater continues his Rotoscope animation experiment (following 2001's 
Woody Allen continues his London sabbatical with this light-and-easy, supernatural detective farce. Allen's latest muse Scarlett Johansson stars as an aspiring journalist who's given the scoop of a lifetime by the ghost of a dead muckracker: that a politician's son (Hugh Jackman) is an infamous murderer. 
Two remarkably similar women, in Warsaw and Paris, are acutely aware of each other's existence in Krzysztof Kieslowski's film about the linkage of souls. A Criterion Collection edition. 
This exuberant ode to the creators and solvers of The New York Times crossword puzzle is a cleverly constructed and remarkably suspenseful documentary. 
Called "a David Lynchean fever dream on Beatrix Potter terrain" (Variety), this stop-motion fairy tale chronicles a struggle between aristocratic mice and ursine creatures who dwell within the trunk of an oak tree. 
Michael Winterbottom won a Silver Bear at Berlin for this harrowing docudrama about a trio Muslims who were held at Guantanamo Bay for two years without charge.
Peter Greene stars as a man desperately hoping to find his lost daughter in Lodge Kerrigan's searing debut.
This remarkable collection includes 58 of Norman McLaren's experimental works, ranging from early shorts to his final film for the National Film Board of Canada in 1983. 
An all-star British cast is featured in this complex film about the personalities, intrigues and conflicts that happen in the course of a weekend shooting party in 1913. 
Jean-Luc Godard's provocative account of the Immaculate Conception was picketed when it opened at Facets and other venues, and was condemned by Pope John Paul II for "deeply wounding the religious sentiments of believers". 
Norma Shearer is the Austrian princess who found being the queen of France had its down side as well in this lavish 1938 MGM production. 
This eye-opening glimpse at the Americanization of international politics follows a crack team of U.S. Democratic political consultants as they strategize for a struggling Bolivian presidential candidate 
Claude Chabrol's fiftieth theatrical feature proved that this master of intrigue had lost none of his touch after nearly forty years of filmmaking. Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault star as grifters who decide to take on an international money launderer in the ultimate sting. 
A great Billy Wilder film in which "every turn and twist is exactly calculated and achieves its effect with the simplest of means; this shrewd, smooth, tawdry thriller is one of the high points of 40s films" (Pauline Kael). 
Four young men in their 20s discover there's not much to life after college in Noah Baumbach's indie sleeper. It's a scenario rife with comic possibilities, where romance and the trauma of getting on with life seem overwhelming and all-encompassing. 
Per Oscarsson gives his greatest performance as Pontus, a starving writer in Norway circa 1890, in Henning Carlsen's filming of a Knut Hamsun novel. Winner of the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival. 
This sprawling documentary examines the life and work of Henri Langlois, the founder of the legendary Cinematheque Francaise, a pioneer in film preservation, and a father figure to the directors of the French New Wave. 
From master filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos comes a poetic, haunting and abundantly beautiful film (and 1998 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner), starring Bruno Ganz as a dying man trying to make peace with his past. 
Nominated for 12 Academy Awards in its native Japan, this historical drama follows a displaced swordsmen trying to hew to a traditional way of life in a rapidly modernizing Japan. 
For his directorial debut, Cuban native Andy Garcia helms a heartfelt portrait of an ephemeral moment in his home nation's history. 
Spanning five continents and some 100,000 years, this five-part series delves into the open-ended question of why our world looks the way it does. 
Winner of 8 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture, this uplifting historical drama is based on a short story by Shugoro Yamamoto, with a script by Akira Kurosawa. 
Two films from Peter Watkins in one package: The War Game, an unnerving documentary-style film showing what could happen if Britain came under a nuclear attack, and Culloden, a reconstruction of the 1746 conflict that marked the last pitch battle to take place on British soil.
This modern parallel to Chaucer's enduring tale dramatizes the effects of that story's countryside on an American G.I. and three Brits who find themselves en route to the hallowed cathedral on the same Pilgrims Way taken by travelers some 600 years ago.
Barbet Schroeder's up-close look at a gorilla trained by a Stanford University psychologist to communicate via sign language captures the excitement, charm and controversy surrounding this groundbreaking project.
Four low-budget horror yarns from the mind of British producer Richard Gordon that are guaranteed to bring on the creeps and produce an unlimited supply of cheap thrills. 
Michael Haneke continues a string of darkly provocative, intelligent dramas with this tautly paced, menacingly atmospheric thriller. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche star as a couple raising a young son in a sunny, affluent household. When enigmatic video tapes and drawings begin arriving at their doorstep, the family finds their complacent existence shattered by unearthed secrets from the husband's past. 
Four Seventies films from maverick director Robert Altman are featured in this exclusive 4-DVD set.
This robust, Cesar-winning drama is set in a Parisian housing project, where street-wise teenagers balance their hopes and dreams against the sometimes grim realities of day-to-day life. 
De Mille's extravagant spectacle remake of his own epic cost millions, and made Charlton Heston synonymous with Moses.
This surreal black-white silent film from Guy Maddin enjoyed a limited tour of art-house theaters in 2006-2007, boasting a live orchestra, Foley artists, and celebrity narrators employed to help tell the imagined story of Maddin's nightmarish childhood at an isolated lighthouse-turned-orphanage. A Criterion Collection edition.
In Lech Majewski's untamed fusion of musical, abstract, and narrative film, a mother, father, and son are living together in a confined urban apartment. To combat the banality of it all, the boy lets his imagination run wild. 
Two features by the late Ukrainian-born filmmaker Larisa Shepitko, Wings and The Ascent, are featured in this 2-DVD Criterion Collection Eclipse Series set.
Continuing to deal in the experimental, Polish-born filmmaker Lech Majewski creates a dialogue-free meditation on the interrelated nature of art, religion, and trauma as experienced by a young mental patient.
Russian documentarian Andrei Nekrasov presents a charged look at the 2006 poisoning death of exiled former KGB operative Alexander Litvinenko, speculating that the Kremlin orchestrated the attack in retaliation for his open criticism of Putin's regime.
In this surreal and soapy Polish-American coproduction by visionary filmmaker Lech Majewski, the marriage of Viggo Mortensen and Jennifer Rubin slowly deteriorates against the backdrop of the California desert. 
From Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi comes this "fateful and funny, haunting and magical" (New York Times) road movie about a Kurdish musician who travels with his sons from Iran to Iraq to perform for the first time after the fall of Saddam. 
Everyone's favorite cartoon family comes to the big screen in grand fashion to follow the mayhem that results when Homer falls for a pig.
Director Corneliu Porumboiu's humorous, Cannes award-winning film, set sixteen years after the fall of Ceausescu's communist regime and just days before Christmas, follows a town debating their involvement in the revolution.
Michael Moore's Palme d'Or winning (Cannes Film Festival) documentary hit comes to DVD early October just in time to get eve