Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Dead & Buried (Limited Edition)

  • DEAD & BURIED LIMITED EDITION 2-DISC (DVD MOVIE)
Paul Conroy is not ready to die. But when he wakes up six feet underground with no idea of who put him there or why, life for the truck driver and family man instantly becomes a hellish struggle for survival. Buried with only a cell phone and a lighter, his contact with the outside world and ability to piece together clues that could help him discover his location are maddeningly limited. Poor reception, a rapidly draining battery, and a dwindling oxygen supply become his worst enemies in a tightly confined race against time; fighting panic, despair and delirium, Paul has only ninety minutes to be rescued before his worst nightmare comes true.Alfred Hitchcock, eat your heart out. Sure, the master of suspense set himself some tough challenges with limited scenarios: Lifeboat took place entirely within the title craft, Rear Window d! idn't stray from Jimmy Stewart's apartment, and Rope stuck mostly to an unbroken take. But Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés wants to do the master one better: Buried is set inside a coffin, buried beneath a few feet of immovable earth. Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) wakes up inside the coffin, a cell phone and lighter next to him; for the next 90 minutes, we won't leave the narrow space of that wooden box. No cheats: no flashbacks to Paul's past, no cross-cutting with efforts to free him. Cortés sticks to the rules and follows his story out to its conclusion, and in the process he must think of every possible way to shoot and light someone in a confined space. Seems Paul was in Iraq as a non-military truck driver when he got caught in some crossfire, and somebody wants to make a point. The cell phone allows him to speak, and try to puzzle out what's happening, but except for the voices on the other end, this is entirely Ryan Reynolds's show. The actor is up for ! it: although he can't use his body, he calls on both his actio! n-movie chops and (at certain exasperating moments) his comic talents. By definition, this is a bravura turn, and Reynolds comes through firing on all cylinders. Buried is an exercise, but it manages to sneak in a few sly suggestions about the nature of an American's presence in the Middle East. It even earns points for an excellent credits sequence--a clever nod to Hitchcock classics. Somehow you suspect the master would approve. --Robert HortonDEAD AND BURIED - DVD MovieOverlooked during its theatrical run but a cult favorite on video, this unique and chilling take on the zombie film finally joins the digital ranks with a two-DVD set from Blue Underground. James Farentino stars as a small-town sheriff who discovers that the victims in a string of grisly murders are reappearing seemingly alive and unharmed. His investigation leads him to suspect that the local mortician (Jack Albertson) is somehow responsible for these reanimated corpses; what Farentino doesn't know i! s the extent to which the entire town-himself included-is involved. First-time viewers will appreciate director Gary Sherman's attention to pacing and atmosphere, as well as the often darkly humorous script by co-producer Ronald Shusett and Dan O'Bannon (Alien, Total Recall) and the solid cast (which includes future horror star Robert Englund); longtime fans will appreciate the fact that Blue Underground's uncut print restores many of Stan Winston's gruesome special effects. --Paul Gaita

Brother DR510 20000 Page Drum Unit

  • Laser Toner Drum Unit
  • Genuine Original
  • Brother OEM Replacement
Captain Sam Cahill (Maguire) is embarking on his fourth tour of duty, leaving behind his beloved wife (Portman) and two daughters. When Sam’s Blackhawk helicopter is shot down in the mountains of Afghanistan, the worst is presumed, leaving an enormous void in the family. Despite a dark history, Sam’s charismatic younger brother Tommy (Gyllenhaal) steps in to fill the family void.Screenwriter David Benioff (The 25th Hour) didn't have to do much to relocate Brothers from Denmark to America. The story remains the same: Captain Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) loves his family, but he's equally devoted to his career. Just as his ne'er-do-well brother, Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), exits prison, where he did time for robbery, the Marines deploy Sam to Afghanistan. Tommy starts looking in on his wary sister-in! -law, Grace (Natalie Portman), but then Sam's helicopter crashes in the mountains, and the military informs Grace that her husband has died. Unbeknownst to the Cahill clan, the Taliban has taken Sam hostage and tortures him to elicit information. Sam resists, but his colleague caves, leading to an unthinkable act. Back in New Mexico, Grace and Tommy grow closer, stopping just short of a full-blown affair (in Susanne Bier's original, they take the plunge). Even Tommy's disapproving Vietnam vet father, Hank (Sam Shepard), sees his son in a new light after Tommy renovates Grace's kitchen. But when Sam is rescued by his company, he returns a broken man and is convinced that his wife has fallen in love with his brother. Even his daughters are afraid of him (Bailee Madison impresses as the eldest). As in Bier's film, Jim Sheridan (In America) elevates redemption and forgiveness over tragedy and loss, and his well-meaning remake gets off to a solid start, but it loses ste! am by the end. Brothers offers a compelling scenario,! but the telling is too overstated to capture the full heartbreak of the situation. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Brothers (Click for larger image)



When Jared Dillian joined Lehman Brothers in 2001, he fulfilled a life-long dream to make it on Wall Streetâ€"but he had no idea how close to the edge the job would take him.

Like Michael Lewis’s classic Liar’s Poker, Jared Dillian’s Street Freak takes readers behind the scenes of the legendary Lehman Brothers, exposing its outrageous and often hilarious corporate culture.

In this ultracompetitive Ivy League world where men would flip over each other’s ties to check out the labels (also known as the “Lehman Handshake”), Dillian was an outsider as an ex-military, working-class guy in a Men’s Wearhouse suit. But he was scrappy and determined; in interviews he told potential managers that, “Nobody can work harder than me. Nobody is willing to put in the hours I will put in. I am insane.” As it turned out, on Wall Street insanity is not an undesirable qualit! y.

Dillian rose from green associate, checking IDs at the e! ntrance to the trading floor in the paranoid days following 9/11, to become an integral part of Lehman’s culture in its final years as the firm’s head Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) trader. More than $1 trillion in wealth passed through his hands, but at the cost of an untold number of smashed telephones and tape dispensers. Over time, the exhilarating and explosively stressful job took its toll on him. The extreme highs and lows of the trading floor masked and exacerbated the symptoms of Dillian’s undiagnosed bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorders, leading to a downward spiral that eventually landed him in a psychiatric ward.

Dillian put his life back together, returning to work healthier than ever before, but Lehman itself had seemingly gone mad, having made outrageous bets on commercial real estate, and was quickly headed for self-destruction.

A raucous account of the final years of Lehman Brothers, from 9/11 at its World Financial Center offices through the firm’s ! bankruptcy, including vivid portraits of trading-floor culture, the financial meltdown, and the company’s ultimate collapse, Street Freak is a raw, visceral, and wholly original memoir of life inside the belly of the beast during the most tumultuous time in financial history. In his electrifying and fresh voice, Dillian takes readers on a wild ride through madness and back, both inside Lehman Brothers and himself.Drum Cartridge - 20000 Page

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