List Price: $19.99 Our Price: $11.97YOU SAVE $8.02!
Buy it
DVD Dirty Pretty Things
The luminous Audrey Tautou (Amelie) stars in Dirty Pretty Things, a riveting thriller about an illegal immigrant in London named Okwe (Chiwetal Ejiofor, Amistad), a doctor in his homeland who now works days as a taxi driver and nights as a hotel desk clerk. When a hooker tells him there's a mess in one of the hotel's bathrooms, Okwe finds a human heart in the toilet. He soon discovers a snare of desperation, poverty, and black-market body organs--and finds that his only friend, a Turkish hotel maid (Tautou), may be the next to be caught. Dirty Pretty Things, skillfully directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons, My Beautiful Laundrette), fuses taut suspense with an unsettling portrait of life among the British underclass of immigrant service workers. Thanks to the excellent cast and script, the movie makes its social points subtly, while the gripping story coils itself around you. --Bret Fetzer
I only wanted to see this movie to see Audrey Tatou in action again. Amelie hooked me.
This movie about organ selling in exchange for passports/legal papers is a beautiful love story. Not the typical guy meets girl, bad things happen, all ends well kind of love story...but a love story about human nature.
The doctor from Lagos and the refugee from Turkey work together in a way that proves anything is possible. This moving is compelling, entertaining and unexpected. The twist is unique and the ending is superb. You absolutely can't go wrong with this one.
Great acting, some plot misfunction
Chiwetel Ejiofor and Audrey Tatou star in this dark mystery that takes place in London's underbelly. Ejiofor is Okwe, a Nigerian doctor who has illegally imigrated and must work two jobs--as a cab driver and a hotel clerk--to make ends meet. Tatou is Senay, a young Turkish woman, who is still working on the equivalent of a "green card" and does not yet have citizen status. Senay works at the same hotel as Okwe and lets him rent space in her apartment. Both are tightly wound and neither are entirely comfortable with the others' presence.
When Okwe finds a heart in one of the hotel's toilets during his shift, he is shocked and upset. He tells the hotel manager what he has found, only to be told that he should ignore it. Inevitably Okwe finds himself in the middle of a sordid business and blackmail, with Senay caught up as well.
I hate to be vague about the plot, but I don't want to spoil it either. There are, however, a few loose ends, which ended up bothering me long after I was done watching the movie. The acting makes up for it and Ejiofor's acting alone deserves five stars. His eyes are so communicative and you can really feel the weight of his sense of duty and his powerlessness as an illegal alien. I appreciated the way the movie makes you think about people in menial jobs--doesn't do to underestimate the people around you--though I think the message was a little heavy handed right at the end. Tatou is also very good and the character of Senay is very, very different from that of Amelie. Some great supporting characters, including Juliette the prostitue, played by Sophia Okonedo, whom I hope I'll see in more movies.
Under the pretty lies the dirty
Dirty Pretty Things, directed by Stephen Frears, captures the experiences of immigrants in London and the life they live. The movie centers around a hotel where Okwe (Chitwetel Ejiofer) is a Nigerian immigrant working in a glittery, yet seedy hotel. Senay (Audrey Tatou) is his roommate and also has a job cleaning the hotel after the prostitutes fleece the coins from their clients. Okwe's boss, Juan (Sergi Lopez) plays the villian in this movie and has some dirty, shady dealings going on in the hotel that has become lucatative at the expense of illegal immigrants (don't want to spoil the movie for you). The characters are all drawn closer into conflict by wants and needs and thus the conflict occurs between Okwe, Sergi and Senay.
Frears shows the audience a small (really small) glimspe of the difficult and improvish life immigrants have. This movie is helped immeasurably by the performance of Chiwetel Ejiofer, who steals the movie away from Audrey Tatou. Tatou's character wasn't developed as in depth as ejiofer or Lopez, thus she can across as staged and wooden, but Tatou does radiate a beauty that is striking. Sohie Okonedo plays a wise cracking hooker that lends a quirkiness to the film, and has a beauty that rivals Tatou. Lopez plays an excellent villian, his script is nicely constructed thus his twisted deals really have you hating this guy toward the end of the film. However, their were some faults in the movie: the heart in the toliet makes no sense, a heart is worth more than a kidney; and why would Lopez be so careless about the operation or about trusting Okwe (especially giving him the passport and money, when he knows he loves Senay). Even with those small flaws, Dirty Pretty Things comes across as a wickly dirty treasure of a film.
When a movie can blend passionate social concern with good old-fashioned suspense, it must be doing something right. Maria Full of Grace scores high on both counts. Maria is a Colombian teenager who, for a large paycheck, agrees to be a mule for drug-runners: she has to swallow dozens of thumb-sized capsules of heroin and smuggle them into New York. This debilitating process is painstakingly described, and of course not everything goes as planned when Maria and her fellow mules land in America. Director Joshua Marston is working on a low budget, which explains the film's narrow, single-minded focus--but this may be a strength, not a weakness. The trump card is the lead performance of Catalina Sandrino Moreno, who won awards at the Seattle and Newport Film Festivals. Her empathetic... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Catalina Sandino Moreno - Guilied Lopez - Orlando Tobon Director(s): Joshua Marston DVD Release Date: Released the 07 December 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $14.98YOU SAVE $4.99!
Buy it
An absolute delight, L'Auberge Espagnole captures a moment in a life, seemingly about nothing and everything all at once. Xavier (Romain Duris), a young Parisian not sure what his life is about, decides to spend a year in Barcelona studying economics--leaving behind his unhappy girlfriend (Audrey Tautou, Amélie) but joining an international mix of students in a hectic, crowded apartment. Arguing and partying with his British, German, Danish, and Italian roommates--not to mention getting lessons in love from a Belgian lesbian (Cecile De France) so that he can seduce a friend's wife (Judith Godreche, Ridicule)--Xavier learns more about life than economics. The movie, beautifully shot on digital video, has a freshness and spontaneity that make its simple events--a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Romain Duris - Judith Godrèche - Audrey Tautou - Kelly Reilly Director(s): Cédric Klapisch DVD Release Date: Released the 23 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $7.49YOU SAVE $7.49!
Buy it
Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.94 Your Price: $14.96YOU SAVE $4.98!
Buy it
Like cinematic dynamite, City of God lights a fuse under its squalid Brazilian ghetto, and we're a captive audience to its violent explosion. The titular favela is home to a seething army of impoverished children who grow, over the film's ambitious 20-year timeframe, into cutthroat killers, drug lords, and feral survivors. In the vortex of this maelstrom is L'il Z (Leandro Firmino da Hora--like most of the cast, a nonprofessional actor), self-appointed king of the dealers, determined to eliminate all competition at the expense of his corrupted soul. With enough visual vitality and provocative substance to spark heated debate (and box-office gold) in Brazil, codirectors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund tackle their subject head on, creating a portrait of youthful... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Fernando Meirelles - Kátia Lund DVD Release Date: Released the 08 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $19.99YOU SAVE $0!
Buy it
Sean Penn and Benecio Del Toro, two of the most gripping actors around, play wildly different men linked through a grieving woman (Naomi Watts, Mulholland Drive, The Ring) in 21 Grams. Del Toro (Traffic, The Usual Suspects) delves deep into the role of an ex-con turned born-again Christian, a deeply conflicted man struggling to set right a terrible accident, even at the expense of his family. Penn (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking) captures a cynical, philandering professor in dire need of a heart transplant, which he gets from the death of Watts' husband. 21 Grams slips back in forth in time, creating an intricate emotional web out of the past and the present that slowly draws these three together; the result is remarkably fluid and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sean Penn - Naomi Watts - Benicio Del Toro Director(s): Alejandro González Iñárritu DVD Release Date: Released the 16 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $11.98YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
