Everything about Tool's fourth album is an experience, starting with the packaging, which consists of liner credits printed on a translucent plastic sleeve over the CD and a booklet that layers anatomical representations atop one another--the first page pictures musculature and blood vessels; the next, bones; the third, internal organs; and so on. It's worth describing the packaging of Lateralus because it says much about the astonishing music within. Maynard James Keenan and company understand the expectations riding on this much-anticipated release and they've delivered the goods! While it remains in the Tool tradition of trance-inducing progressive metal, Lateralus is tighter, clearer, crisper, and all around a notch above their admirable previous releases. Aenima was marred by muddy production and a certain predictability. Undertow had a cleaner sound but wasn't as confident or adventurous. With Lateralus, Tool have raised an already lofty bar still higher by coming up with a collection that kicks major ass. --Genevieve Williams ... Read more

Asin: B00005B36H
Subjects:  1. Alternative Metal    2. Heavy Metal    3. Pop    4. Rock   

Oprah Book Club® Selection, April 1998: "The first time my husband hit me I was nineteen yearsold," begins Fran Benedetto, the broken heroine of Anna Quindlen'sBlack and Blue. With one sweeping sentence, the door to anabused and tortured world is swung wide open and the psyche of acrushed and tattered self-image exposed. "Frannie, Frannie, Fran"--as Bobby Benedetto likedto call her before smashing her into kitchen appliances--was a young,energetic nursing student when she met her husband-to-be at a localBrooklyn bar. She was instantly captivated by his dark, brooding looksand magnetic personality, but her fascination soon solidified into amarital prison sentence of incessant abuse and the destruction of herown identity. After an especially horrific beating and rape, Franrealizes that the next attack could be the last. Fearing her son wouldbe left alone with Bobby, she escapes one morning with her child.Fran'ssalvation comes in the form of Patty Bancroft and Co., arelocation agency for abused women that touts better service than thewitness protection program. Armed only with a phone number, a fewhundred dollars, and the help of several anonymous volunteers, Franbegins a new life. The agency relocates her to Florida, where shebecomes Beth Crenshaw, a recently divorced home-care assistant fromDelaware. Fran and her son adapt, meeting challenges with unexpectedresilience and resolve until their past returns to haunt them. Quindlenrenders the intricacies of spousal abuse with eerie accuracy, takingthe reader deep within the realm of dysfunctional human ties. However,her vivid descriptions of abuse, emotional disintegration, and acuteloneliness at times numb the reader with their realism. ... Read more

Isbn: 0440226104
Subjects:  1. Fiction    2. Fiction - General    3. General    4. Fiction / General   

Winner of five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, The Deer Hunter is simultaneously an audacious directorial conceit and one of the greatest films ever made about friendship and the personal impact of war. Like Apocalypse Now, it's hardly a conventional battle film--the soldier's experience was handled with greater authenticity in Platoon--but its depiction of war on an intimate scale packs a devastatingly dramatic punch. Director Michael Cimino may be manipulating our emotions with masterful skill, but he does it in a way that stirs the soul and pinches our collective nerves with graphic, high-intensity scenes of men under life-threatening duress.Although Russian-roulette gambling games were not a common occurrence during the Vietnam war, they're used here as a metaphor for the futility of the war itself. To the viewer, they become unforgettably intense rites of passage for the best friends--Pennsylvania steelworkers played by Robert De Niro, John Savage, and Oscar winner Christopher Walken--who may survive or perish during their tour through a tropical landscape of hell. Back home, their loved ones must cope with the war's domestic impact, and in doing so they allow The Deer Hunter to achieve a rare combination of epic storytelling and intimate, heart-rending drama. --Jeff Shannon ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Dolby
• Widescreen

Asin: 0783225997
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

Horror master John Carpenter offers up a triple treat with TheFog: Jamie Lee Curtis, Adrienne Barbeau, and Janet Leigh all in the samemovie. As if that weren't enough, both John Houseman and Hal Holbrook makeappearances, each clearly enjoying the novelty of being in a horror flick.The Fog opens just before the centennial celebration of the seasidetown of Antonio Bay. Then the witching hour strikes, glowing fog rolls in,and all hell breaks loose. Carpenter wrote the script with producer DebraHill, his collaborator on Halloween, and the two know their craft.It's a creepy story and a tight script, and, as in their previous effort, theaudience gets to know the main characters a bit before they're put in danger.The movie also has a sly sense of humor: "Things seem to happen to me," saysslasher vet Jamie Lee. "I'm bad luck." Barbeau is also obviously having agreat time, sinking her teeth into her role as a frightened disc jockeywatching the fog roll in from a lighthouse. The Fog offers a fewshocks and plenty of good old-fashioned clammy chills. You'll never look atweather systems the same way again. --Ali Davis ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen
• Dolby

Asin: B00005JKG7
Subjects:  1. Horror