New Videos Coming Out This Week

This week's selection of new releases scheduled for May 29, 2001, includes films such as Shadow of the Vampire, The Celluloid Closet (1996) - Special Edition, and Marilyn Monroe - The Diamond Collection. But there are two releases that I am particularly excited about: The House of Mirth and Traffic.

The House of Mirth

Tagline: "When a woman has the beauty men admire and women envy ... it is wise to tread carefully."

Length: 140 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG for thematic material

Writer-director Terence Davies’ adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel is set among New York City’s upper social strata in 1905. The bleak story centers around the attractive Lily Bart (Gillian Anderson), a woman approaching age 30 who has not found a suitable husband. However, her prospects remain fairly good until she runs afoul of the scheming Bertha Dorset (Laura Linney), who manages to destroy Lily’s hopes. The film is a fascinating study of a society that makes almost no provision for a woman to be economically independent of men.

Formats Available: DVD, VHS

Shadow of the Vampire

Length: 91 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for some sexuality, drug content, violence, and language

In the early 1920s, legendary German director F.W. Murnau made the classic vampire movie Nosferatu with actor Max Schreck in the role of the vampire. Shadow of the Vampire is a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu which postulates that Schreck was not a human playing a vampire--he really was a vampire! Schreck’s strange behavior is attributed to the fact that he never breaks character, and Murnau is indifferent to the fates of cast and crew as long as his film gets made. Shadow of the Vampire stars John Malkovich as Murnau and Willem Dafoe as Schreck.

Formats Available: DVD, VHS

Traffic

Tagline: "No One Gets Away Clean."

Length: 147 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for pervasive drug content, strong language, violence, and some sexuality

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Traffic is a hard-hitting drama about the illegal drug traffic from Mexico into the U.S. The movie, which stars Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, chronicles the stories of law enforcement personnel and drug dealers on both sides of the Mexican-American border. Also, the film tells the tale of newly appointed U.S. drug czar Robert Wakefield (Douglas), who, even as he tries to spearhead the "war on drugs," discovers that his own teenage daughter is a junkie.

Formats Available: DVD, VHS

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