You love how a pair of good shoes can make you look. You love how they up the glam quotient of your outfit in a trice. You think there is no such thing as too many shoes. Your wet dreams consist of designer shoe sales up to 75% off. You breathe and live peep-toes, clogs, sandals, boots, stilettos, platforms, wedges... in short you're a Shoeholic! Those who are familiar with the term Shoeholic have probably heard Tinu s evocative song Shoeholic that speaks so fervently of an addiction for shoes and tells the tragicomic tale of barely making ends meet in life but loving how sexy that pair of shoes can instantly make you look and feel. Tinu s love affair with shoes began as a teen and progressed to the point that she is now a fully fledged collector and authority on all things shoes... Less

Chinese writer/director Jia Zhang Ke's The World is his fourth feature, but it's his first set in a major city, and the first film he's made with the cooperation of the Chinese government. The World is set at the eponymous amusement park in Beijing. Tao (Zhao Tao, who played the Mongolian King girl, Qiao Qiao, in Jia's Unknown Pleasures) is a dancer at the park, which contains scale replicas of landmarks from around the globe. "The Twin Towers were bombed on September 11," says Taisheng (Chen Taisheng), a security guard, proudly, pointing to a miniature New York City skyline, "but ours are still here!" Tao is dating Taisheng, who, like her, moved to Beijing from the provinces for work years earlier. Taisheng thinks Tao is just stringing him along until she finds somebody better, so he... Less

The Incredibles The year `s wittiest , zippiest adventure, with each knockout action sequence eclipsing the last ." From the Academy Award -Winning creators of Finding Nemo comes the action - packed  animated adventure about the mundane and incredible lives of a house full of superheroes . Bob Parr and his wife Helen used to be among the world's greatest crime fighters , saving lives and battling evil on a daily basis. Fifteen years later , they have been forced  to adopt civilian identities and retreat to the suburbs where they live " normal " live with their  three kids , Violet , Dash , and Jack - Jack. Itching to get back into action , Bob gets his chance when a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top secret assignment . He soon discovers that it... Less

The Shooting, perhaps the most famous Western hardly anybody ever saw, takes deadpan survey of the fallout from a casual atrocity, or perhaps only a ludicrous accident, in a nameless town. We never see the atrocity/accident , or even the town. Word simply reaches a prospector's camp, a wood-and-canvas pimple on the blankness of the wasteland, that someone "rode down a man and a little person... maybe a child." Was the someone Willett Gashade's brother Coin, who has gone missing? Was it Leland Drum, Coin's companion, who gets shot from ambush at his fireside-- perhaps by an unknown avenger, perhaps by Coin? The death of Drum explains the film's title, but there's a long list of things we never know in The Shooting, and most (all?) of the characters in the movie never know them either... Less

New Page 1 THE AMERICAN JOURNEY THE COMPLETE STORY OF AMERICAN HISTORY IN ONE COMPREHENSIVE MIDDLE SCHOOL PROGRAM The American Journey is a superb, readable presentation of American history, from pre-exploration to the present. Its unparalleled author team, including the National Geographic Society, ensures accuracy in every detail of the narrative, maps, and charts. Features Accessible Reading and Reading Strategies Are a Priority • Exclusive! Foldables— student-made three- dimensional graphic organizers— are a unique strategy that helps students read effectively and also can be used as assessment or study tools. • A Guide to Reading, Reading Checks, and a Summary in every chapter keep students on track as they learn to read for... Less

Hannah Sunderland felt content in her embrace of the Quaker faith until her twin brother ran off and joined the army and ended up captured and in jail. Suddenly Hannah's world turns on end. She longs to bring her brother some measure of comfort in the squalid, frigid prison where he remains. But the Quakers believe they are not to take sides, not to take up arms. Can she sit by and do nothing while he suffers?Jeremiah Jones has an enormous task before him. Responsibility for a spy ring is now his, and he desperately needs access to the men in prison, whom they are seeking to free. A possible solution is to garner a pass for Hannah. But while she is fine to the eye, she holds only disdain for him--and agreeing would mean disobeying those she loves and abandoning a bedrock of her faith.

Vincent Ward's mystical tale of a tiny 14th-century English hamlet during the devastation of the Black Plague mixes faith and fantasy in a compelling adventure. Ward creates a stark look with his high contrast black-and-white photography: dark huts against a snow-covered landscape and a gray sky, candles and campfires burning tiny pools of light in the midnight-black caves. The visions of young Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) break this austere style with color dreams, at first merely flashes of images, then a vivid narrative of a pilgrimage through the center of the earth. Griffin's older brother Connor (Bruce Lyons), who has just returned from the dying, diseased cities of England, leads this great journey to an alien world of metal beasts and towering ramparts (revealed as a modern New... Less

It could be said that without the incredible success of the ABC miniseries Holocaust in 1978, CBS might have thought twice before greenlighting the ambitious, three-hour TV docudrama The Wall four years later. Adapted by Millard Lampell from his own 1960 Broadway play, which in turn was inspired by John Hersey's 1950 novel, The Wall is the heartbreaking but inspiring story of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. When it becomes obvious that every Jew in Poland is doomed to be shipped off to the Nazi work and death camps, some 650 members of the newly formed Jewish Fighting Organization mount a last, brave stand against nearly 3000 German soldiers. The story is told through the eyes of Warsaw Jew Dolek Benson (Tom Conti, in his first American TV appearance), who is a passive observer... Less

Every thief dreams of the big heist that will allow him to leave the business of crime behind. Every thief except Nick (Robert De Niro), a cool, methodical safecracker who never takes on long-shot jobs until his longtime partner, Max (Marlon Brando), offers him the big score--to filch a priceless scepter from the Montreal customs house. Wary about the job, Nick and the hotheaded customs house "insider," Jackie (Edward Norton), begin to dissect the elaborate details of entering the building, avoiding the security measures, blowing the safe, and escaping with the scepter. But as in every thrilling crime caper, plans go awry. Skilled comic director Frank Oz is clearly comfortable working with the best method actors from the past three generations. Brando's Max bursts with joyful cynicism,... Less

An A-list director. A jaw-dropping storyline. And depraved depictions of suburban violence, 70s fashions and 'sick love'. The result remains one of the most disturbing movies in Hollywood history: Anjanette Comer ("The Loved One") stars as an idealistic L.A. County social worker who investigates the case of Mrs. Wadsworth (former '50s starlet Ruth Roman of "Strangers On A Train" fame), her two buxom daughters, and son 'Baby', a mentally- disabled man who sleeps in a crib, eats in a high-chair, crawls, bawls and wears diapers. But what secrets of unnatural attachment - and sexual obsession - are all of these women hiding? Marianna Hill ("The Godfather Part II") and Michael Pataki ("Grave Of The Vampire") co-star in this psychotic stunner from director Ted Post ("Magnum Force", "Beneath The... Less

From 1933 until 1941, as totalitarianism took hold in Germany and Italy, hundreds of scholars, intellectuals, and artists fled Europe for America. The story of these emigres, many of whom found safe haven in the United States, is the subject of The Exiles. Recapturing an extraordinary chapter in twentieth- century life, this compelling documentary chronicles the most significant rescue of oppressed artists and intellectuals in modern times and highlights their far-reaching contributions to culture and scholarship in their adopted country. Divided into two hour-long segments, The Exiles, an Emmy Award winning documentary, spans nearly six decades of Euro-American history. Its chronology begins with the pre-World War II conditions that first prompted the emigres to leave their homelands... Less

Minnie Driver stars as an impoverished Jewish woman, Mary, living in an emphatically anti-Semitic England in the mid-19th century. Following the murder of her beloved father--who leaves his survivors strapped with his debts--she camouflages her identity as a Protestant of Italian descent and takes a job as governess to an unorthodox Scottish family. In this film by Sandra Goldbacher, sundry conventions from Victorian novels mix with a contemporary, feminist take on Mary's subsequent adventures. Mary asserts, with some effort, her authority over her willful charge (Florence Hoath); she dodges the insults of a vaguely ghoulish matriarch (Harriet Walter); and she becomes an aide, confidante, and lover to the man of the house (Tom Wilkinson), a naturalist dabbling with early... Less

In North London, an all-male bee-hive of inactivity is ruled with a foul mouth and an iron hand by the abusive Max (Paul Rogers) and his brother, the priggish palace eunuch Sam (Cyril Cusack). Rounding out the precision vulgarity of The Homecoming's "situation tragedy" are the sons, punch-drunk demolition man Joey (Terence Rigby) and the magnificent Ian Holm (Lord of the Rings, The Sweet Hereafter) as pimp-smart Lenny. When, under cover of darkness, the prodigal son Teddy (Michael Jayston) brings his wife Ruth (Vivien Merchant) home to meet his family for the first time, he gets far more and less than he bargained for. To Teddy's rueful discomfort, Ruth's Mona Lisa smile forms the gateway to a labyrinth of Freudian dread, venal family values and naked neediness that could only come from... Less

Bong Joon-ho's THE HOST is a giddy revelation an inspired and unexpectedly moving contribution to the monster movie genre. Several years ago, a crooked government official from the United States ordered the dumping of toxic substances into Seoul's Han River. Years later, the hapless Gang-du (Song Kang-ho) is working at his father's food stand along the river, caring for his bright daughter Hyun-seo (Ko A-sung). But one day, a monstrous creature emerges from the water and embarks on a murderous rampage throughout the community, swallowing Hyun-seo whole. Gang-du's bullish younger brother Park Nam-il (Park Hae-il) and sister Nam-joo (Bae Doo-na) condemn him for being such a failure, while their father angrily chastises them for being so cruel. But when Gang-du receives a cell phone call... Less

In THE HAPPENING, M. Night Shyamalan serves up over-the-top, apocalyptic strangeness. The film opens onto New York City's Central Park with a crowd of people enjoying an idyllic summer day. The carefree scene soon takes a terrifying turn, when out of nowhere, hordes of people begin to commit suicide en masse. People scramble to make sense of the pandemonium, and many believe it is a terrorist attack. It appears that some sort of deadly toxin is being released into the air. Cut to Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) a science teacher in Philadelphia. When he learns of the attack on New York, he meets up with his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), his friend Julian (John Leguizamo), and Julians's daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). They make plans to get out of the city via train, but the train is evacuated in... Less

John Wayne drew on what he learned from John Ford, Howard Hawks, and practically everyone who directed him during his long career when he made his own directorial debut on this labor of love. The Alamo is a sprawling, unabashedly patriotic epic of the sacrifice made by 187 men defending the Alamo from Santa Ana's bigger and better equipped army. Wayne stars as Col. Davy Crockett, the straight- talking, fun-loving frontiersman turned senator, with Laurence Harvey as the stiff, by-the-book Col. William Travis and Ricahrd Widmark as the legendary Jim Bowie who bristles under Travis's military protocol. The mix of regular army soldiers, Texican irregulars, scouts, and civilians makes for a volatile melting pot, but they all come together in a time of crisis in this metaphor for Wayne's heroic... Less

Original Video Release by MCA Home Video ~~~~~~ Amazon.com essential video Vacationing in northern California, Alfred Hitchcock was struck by a story in a Santa Cruz newspaper: "Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes." From this peculiar incident, and his memory of a short story by Daphne du Maurier, the master of suspense created one of his strangest and most terrifying films. The Birds follows a chic blonde, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), as she travels to the coastal town of Bodega Bay to hook up with a rugged fellow (Rod Taylor) she's only just met. Before long the town is attacked by marauding birds, and Hitchcock's skill at staging action is brought to the fore. Beyond the superb effects, however, The Birds is also one of Hitchcock's most psychologically complicated scenarios, a tense... Less

Meticulously crafted but also ponderous and predictable, James Cameron's 1989 deep-sea close-encounter epic reaffirms one of the oldest first principles of cinema: everything moves a lot more slowly underwater. Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, as formerly married petroleum engineers who still have some "issues" to work out, are drafted to assist a gung-ho Navy SEAL (Michael Biehn) with a top-secret recovery operation: a nuclear sub has been ambushed and sunk, under mysterious circumstances, in some of the deepest waters on earth, and the petro-techies have the only submersible craft capable of diving down that far. Every image and every performance is painstakingly sharp and detailed (and the computerized water creatures are lovely) but the movie's lumbering pace is ultimately... Less

Director Mike Nichols's THE GRADUATE is the satirical coming-of-age comedy that became an emotional touchstone for an entire generation. In the mid-1960s, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), a confused college graduate, is pulled in myriad directions by family, friends, and associates just days after receiving his degree. Seduced by Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), an older friend of the family, Ben carries on an affair with the married woman even as he falls for her daughter, Elaine (Katharine Ross). However, Ben and Elaine's attempts at romance are threatened by the spiteful rage of Mrs. Robinson, who proceeds to hastily arrange Elaine's marriage to someone else, leading up to one of the most memorable endings in cinema history. With its striking photography and clever editing, THE... Less

I first read Mikhail Bulgakov s The Master and Margarita on a balcony of the Hotel Metropole in Saigon on three summer evenings in 1971. The tropical air was heavy and full of the smells of cordite and motorcycle exhaust and rotting fish and wood-fire stoves, and the horizon flared ambiguously, perhaps from heat lightning, perhaps from bombs. Later each night, as was my custom, I would wander out into the steamy back alleys of the city, where no one ever seemed to sleep, and crouch in doorways with the people and listen to the stories of their culture and their ancestors and their ongoing lives. Bulgakov taught me to hear something in those stories that I had not yet clearly heard. One could call it, in terms that would soon thereafter gain wide currency, magical realism . The deadpan mix... Less

In THE BIRDS, Alfred Hitchcock's heart-pounding follow-up to PSYCHO, the director couples a tone of rigorous morality with dark humor to create a thriller that begins as a light comedy and ends as an apocalyptic allegory. Tippi Hedren (Melanie Griffith's mother) carries the picture in her first film role ever, embarking on a career as an icy-cool leading lady. Loosely based on a Daphne du Maurier story and a Santa Monica newspaper account, "Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes," THE BIRDS also features groundbreaking special effects that, in 1963, surprised and delighted audiences. Wealthy reformed party girl Melanie Daniels (Hedren) enjoys a brief flirtation with lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet shop and decides to follow him to his Bodega Bay home. Bearing a... Less

Discover the revolutionary formula that heals the source of illness and disease, even success and relationship issues. According to Stanford, Harvard, Mayo Clinic, the CDC, and other research centers, there is one source of up to 95% of all illness and disease, and it is not your thoughts, emotions, conscious beliefs, actions, or even your DNA. Solomon revealed this source more than 3000 years ago. In 2001 Dr. Alex Loyd discovered how to activate a physical function built into the body that consistently and predictably removes this source so that the neuro-immune system takes over its job of healing whatever is wrong in the body. His findings were validated scientifically and by the thousands of people from all over the world who have used The Healing Codes® system to heal virtually any... Less

Produced by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, this sweeping documentary reveals the American West stripped of its Hollywood mythology, yet filled with intense drama and peopled with a mix of larger-than-life heroes and villains. Spanning the years from the first European advance into the wilderness to the dawn of the 20th century, the series portrays the profound, often devastating impact the onrushing white settlers, adventurers and exploiters had on Indian peoples and the land. In vivid imagery and in words spoken by many of today's best-known personalities, The West shows how the discovery of gold in California changed the country forever. Witness the torrent of violence triggered by the Civil War, the building of the transcontinental railroad, the tragedies at Little Big Horn and Wounded... Less

After the worldwide success of A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles and director Richard Lester reunited for a follow-up film, Eight Arms to Hold You. Well, that wasn't the final title; a pleading Lennon-McCartney tune provided the catchier handle: Help! A loose semispoof of the globe-trotting James Bond pictures, Help! has always been considered a somewhat disorganized comedown from its predecessor; but it presents "the famous Beatles" even more clearly as the English cousins of the Marx Brothers. The plot has an Eastern religious cult declaring that the new ring on Ringo's finger is the key element in a human sacrifice; they will stop at nothing to obtain it. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (crazed Victor Spinetti, who also appeared in A Hard Day's Night and Magical Mystery Tour) believes that if... Less

By following up their debut thriller Bound with the 1999 box-office smash The Matrix, the codirecting Wachowski brothers--Andy and Larry-- annihilated any suggestion of a sophomore jinx, crafting one of the most exhilarating sci-fi/action movies of the 1990s. Set in the not too distant future in an insipid, characterless city, we find a young man named Neo (Keanu Reeves). A software techie by day and a computer hacker by night, he sits alone at home by his monitor, waiting for a sign, a signal--from what or whom he doesn't know--until one night, a mysterious woman named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) seeks him out and introduces him to that faceless character he has been waiting for: Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). A messiah of sorts, Morpheus presents Neo with the truth about his world by... Less

Unabridged CDs, 7 CDs, 8 hours Read by Read by Peter Hedges, Amy Ryan and Alison Pill. The new novel by Oscar-nominated writer and director Peter Hedges: poor parents, rich parents, private schools, real estate, adultery, and marriage, in Brooklyn's wealthiest enclave. Tim Welch is a popular history teacher at the Montague Academy, an exclusive private school in Brooklyn Heights. As he says, "I was an odd-looking, gawky kid but I like to think my rocky start forced me to develop empathy, kindness, and a tendency to be enthusiastic. All of this, I'm now convinced, helped in my quest to be worthy of Kate Oliver." Now, Kate is not inherently ordinary. But she aspires to be. She stays home with their two young sons in a modest apartment trying desperately to become the parent... Less

New York isn't what it used to be, so why haven't New York's photographers and photographic books caught up with reality? Why do picture-makers continue to mimic the gritty glamour and aggression of William Klein's New York images, or stalk up and down Fifth and Madison Avenues paying peculiar homage to Garry Winogrand, or struggle to rediscover the romance of Nan Goldin's Lower East Side, on streets now clogged with Starbucks and designers' tenement-scaled emporia? What makes Mitch Epstein's most recent book, The City, particularly interesting is witnessing Epstein's attempt to breathe life back into a classic, albeit tired, genre. Instead of the usual raucous juxtapositions of visual clichés—pictures crammed with street corner sturm und drang and urban gargoyles—The City's elliptical... Less

On a languid midsummer’s day in the countryside, old Adam Godley, a renowned theoretical mathematician, is dying. His family gathers at his bedside: his son, young Adam, struggling to maintain his marriage to a radiantly beautiful actress; his nineteen-year-old daughter, Petra, filled with voices and visions as she waits for the inevitable; their mother, Ursula, whose relations with the Godley children are strained at best; and Petra’s “young man”—very likely more interested in the father than the daughter—who has arrived for a superbly ill-timed visit.But the Godley family is not alone in their vigil. Around them hovers a family of mischievous immortals—among them, Zeus, who has his eye on young Adam’s wife; Pan, who has taken the doughy, perspiring form of an old unwelcome acquaintance;... Less

To most people, Fiona Bristow seems to have an idyllic life — a quaint house on an island off Seattle’s coast, a thriving dog-training school, and a challenging volunteer job performing canine search and rescue. Not to mention her three intensely loyal Labs. But Fiona got to this point by surviving a nightmare. Several years ago, she was the only survivor of a serial killer — a madman who stalked and abducted young women, strangled them, and left them buried with a red scarf on their bodies. As authorities were closing in on the Red Scarf Killer, he shot and killed Fiona’s cop fiancé and his K-9 partner. On Orcas Island, Fiona has found the peace and solitude she needed to rebuild her life. Yet all that changes on the day Simon Doyle barrels up her drive, desperate for her help. He’s the... Less

Young Luke and his grandmother, on vacation in England, have just checked into a hotel. Also in the premises is the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, a false moniker that hides the fact that the organization's members are really evil-minded, mask-wearing, child-hating witches! And they have all gathered to discuss a most fiendish plot: to turn all children into mice, by feeding them poisonous chocolate. Luke overhears the heinous plans when he eavesdrops on the women, but unfortunately they capture him and turn him into a mouse. Unlucky Luke must scurry back up to his room -- without getting killed -- and alert his grandmother of the witches' intentions, before it's too late. Then, the neophyte rodent must find a way to become human again...