Platoon - Special Edition

Tagline: "The first casualty of war is innocence."

Length: 120 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

Winner of four Oscars including Best Picture, Platoon (1986) is a violent, dizzying, disorienting, brutally realistic depiction of the horror of war. The film’s narrator, Private Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), is loosely based on writer/director Oliver Stone’s own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam. Taylor is a patriotic young man who dropped out of college to volunteer to fight in the Vietnamese War. Through him, the audience experiences the war from a grunt’s point of view as everything Taylor once thought he knew and believed in before coming to Vietnam is challenged. Complicating matters further is the fact that Taylor is caught up in a struggle between two superiors: Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) is a man corrupted by the insanity of war and stripped of compassion, whereas Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) is even-tempered and humanistic. Both sergeants are memorable characters who function as diametrically opposed archetypes. Platoon was Stone’s breakthrough film, and it remains one of his best.

Selected DVD Special Features:

Commentary by Director Oliver Stone

Commentary by Military Supervisor Captain Dale Dye

Theatrical Trailer

Documentary: "Tour of the Inferno"

Widescreen Anamorphic Format

Audio Tracks: English, French, and Spanish

Formats available: The above information refers to the Special Edition DVD; this film is also available on VHS.

A Sneak Peek at What's Coming Next Week

2001 - A Space Odyssey - Limited Edition Collector's Set

Tagline: "The Ultimate Trip."

Length: 139 minutes
MPAA Rating: G

Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 science-fiction classic is visually stunning, brilliant, and enigmatic. A mysterious monolith is discovered on the moon, and the remainder of the story revolves around a manned mission that is sent to search for the extraterrestrial who is presumed to have placed it there. To complicate matters further, the spacecraft’s remarkably human and supposedly infallible HAL 9000 computer goes through something that is akin to a nervous breakdown. Eventually, another monolith is found near Jupiter, leading to surreal revelations and an ending that is both baffling and sublime.

Selected Special DVD Features:

Theatrical trailer

Fully restored widescreen version

Music soundtrack: Fully restored and remastered

Widescreen Letterbox Format - 2.2:1

Formats Available: The above information refers to the Limited Edition Collector's Set DVD; this film is also available on VHS.

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