Waterfront Video

A great many thanks to all those who voted for us as the Best Place to Rent a Movie inside Chittenden County! This is our ninth out of nine Daysies Awards, and we sincerely appreciate the loyalty of all our customers who have been so supportive of us and who have continued renting local over the past 15 years. We hope to continue providing movies of all stripes and serving the community for a long time to come!

And now on to movie news...
An interesting development in the distribution of classic and obscure films on DVD include the rise of the MOD (manufactured-on-demand) model that has been adopted by many major studios. This means that they are making titles available on a "made-to-order" basis -- basically, putting them out as limited DVD-R editions. As of now, Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, and other major rental outlets are not carrying these titles. However, Waterfront Video is! So stop by and pick up some long unavailable gems & curios, including:

Park Row
Sam Fuller's newspaper classic may be didactic at times, but it's fiery and obviously from the heart. As usual with Fuller, there is plenty of grit, piss & vinegar -- as well as a

n expected dose of soapboxing. The few moments of crowd mayhem are staged excellently and it's no surprise why Scorsese cites the picture as influential. Gene Evans is great in the gruff lead -- he and Fuller were made for each other.

Mickey One
One of Arthur Penn's early features, this feisty, eccentric flick tells the grim tale of a comic (Warren Beatty) caught up in danger he doesn't understand. The narrative is fractured and at times messy (deliberately and otherwise), but the energy of the filmmaking is impressive start to finish. Penn borrows generously from the European cinematic sensibilities of the sixties (Godard, Fellini, Bergman, Bunuel, etc) but filters it all through a distinctly American, noir-tinged lens. The surrealistic moments and oddball bit characters add to the underlying sense of paranoia and disorientation.

Crackers
Louis Malle's 1984 heist comedy, featuring Sean Penn, Donald Sutherland, Wallace Shawn, and Jack Warden.

2 Weeks in Another Town
Vincente Minnelli's somewhat follow-up to his classic insider Hollywood tale, The Bad & The Beautiful. This one also stars Kirk Douglas.

The Search & The Defector

Two Montgomery Clift films - his first and last! The Search, from 1948, stars an Oscar-nominated Clift as a soldier in occupied Germany (filmed on location) who befriends a young boy separated from his mother. The Defector, from 1966, is a cold war thriller that, although low on actual thrills, does contain one great hallucinatory sequence that presaged the psychedelic movement around the corner.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt & While the City Sleeps
Two Fritz Lang thrillers from 1956 -- the first a courtroom drama with a great twist, the second a serial killer tale that seems to have set the template for many a suspense film to follow.

The Secret War of Harry Frigg & Sometimes a Great Notion
Two Paul Newman films -- the first a WWII set comedy, the second a drama about a family logging business struggling in a changing economy, directed by Newman.

Other recent releases of note: