Crossroads Films

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Lovers join hands

in "The Spirit Gallery"

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Note: Nea repriced! See below under "Priced to Rent":

Must Haves:

Blood and Roses

(1960) With Mel Ferrer and Elsa Martinelli. Roger Vadim's glossy version of Sheridan LeFanu's gothic story pits a nobleman's intended bride against his undead former love. Can a spurned woman get a second chance at romance, in the body of another? An unusually intense female voiceover makes this tale of vampiric obsession a cut above the usual Vadim babe parade. Note: This tape is unfortunately recorded in the EP mode, but the print shines through.
74 min., Technicolor, Closed Captioned, Not Rated, $9.98

Shirley Valentine

(1989) A British suburbanite tires of talking to the wall, which she's christened with the proper name "Wall," and flies off to reinvent herself in Greece. Shirley may be a dreamer, but she's no starry-eyed newcomer. So after she finds out a rival schoolmate grew up to be a transcontinental hooker, Shirley decides she'd be better off waiting tables in paradise than cleaning up at home. By the end even her exhausted husband can't recognize her! Based on the hit comedy play, with original Tony-winning star Pauline Collins.
108 min., Color, Closed Captioned, Rated R, $14.95

Newfound Bargains

Akermania, vol. 1

(1968-1984) Belgian Chantal Akerman has been called a lesbian Fassbinder, and some of her massive features may bring him to mind, but she has a crazed sense of humor and a romantic streak the martyred German could never summon. Watching a girl slurp runny egg off a fork in "J'ai Faim, J'ai Froid/I'm Hungry, I'm Cold," or witnessing the teenage director hum her way through an act of urban terrorism in "Saute Ma Ville/Blow Up My Town" brings a peculiar joy to otherwise claustrophobically hopeless situations. "Hotel Monterey" is an experimental collection of camera tricks in various lighting situations, as well as a brooding portrait of an old folks' home.
89 min., three shorts on one tape, Color and B/W, French with English subtitles, new low price: $19.98

Ballad of Little Jo

(1994) Maggie Greenwald's western adventure, based on a true story, stars Suzy (Two Small Bodies) Amis as Josephine turned Jo. After bearing a child out of wedlock, a society girl is thrown out with no more than the dress on her back. The adventure begins when she tries to buy a new dress and is handed fabric by the bolt. However, cowboy clothes come ready made... Co-starring noted Shakespearean actor Ian McKellen and Rene "Odo" Auberjonois.
124 min., Color, Rated R, new low price: $19.95

Emma's Shadow

(1988) Borje Ahlstedt, seen in "Fanny and Alexander," co-stars in this touching period film, which copped the Prix de la Jeunesse at Cannes. Line Kruse stars as a little Danish aristobrat who stages her own kidnapping. She stumbles across a Swedish ex-con, who usually has no time for anything but his job down the sewers. After he becomes the father she always wanted, the police only try to take him away for good... Suitable for children old enough to understand the ambiguities of the situation, this is "a fairy tale for adults" in the words of The New York Times.
93 min., Color, Danish with English subtitles, $19.98

Mississippi Mermaid

(1969) When tobacco merchant Jean-Paul Belmondo goes to meet his mysterious penpal bride at dockside, it's none other than Catherine Deneuve in YSL couture. Only in the movies, right? When she takes off with his millions, he follows with his gun. After that, a dignified and airily brutal romance ensues; which Truffaut modeled as a tribute to his favorite director (next to Hitchcock), Jean Renoir.
1 hr. 51 min., Color, French with English subtitles, PG, $19.98

The Rapture

(1991) This ambiguous and hallucinatory movie takes a hedonistic telephone operator (Mimi Rogers) to the end of the world and back; a bracing foray into the perils of conscience and doubt. David Duchovny is second-billed as her unlikely love interest -- a naked atheist.
100 min., Color, Closed Captioned, Rated R, $19.95

Gift Items:

Fireworks

(1947-1953) Teenaged Kenneth Anger made "Fireworks" in a single weekend, while his parent were away, and it remains the most picturesque beating fantasy ever realized on film. Also on hand: "Rabbit's Moon," a combination of Commedia dell'Arte and Japanese myth, and "Eaux D'Artifice."
34 min. total for three films, tinted B/W, silent with music, $29.95

Lemora This independent gothic noir was made in the early 70s. Since then its reputation has prevailed - even the TV listings in the New York Times demanded that you wait up until 3AM to see "Lemora, Lady Dracula." It's a moody, low-budget wonder, with inspired casting. This video debut, an uncensored restoration, also includes an interview with the director as a bonus. The lesbian title character and a bathing scene got Lemora condemned by the Catholic Film Board.
117 min., Color, PG, $39.95

The Spirit Gallery

(1994) Filmmaker John Strysik subtitled this "A Semi-Divine Comedy of Love, Lust and Severe Mutation." Holly Riddle stars as a naive art history student, who soon recognizes the price a muse must pay for being someone's inspiration. If you eat "Twilight Zone" episodes like penny candy; if you can't get enough of Surrealist bugaboos like crucifixion and bizarre sexual surrogates; this should bring back memories of "Skins of the Fathers" era Clive Barker.
85 min., Color, Unrated, $29.95

Last Call at Maud's

(1993) This bittersweet documentary is a bundle of recollections, rumors and confessions. The closing night of a landmark San Francisco saloon is fleshed out with home movies, interviews and memorabilia. It's got all sorts of chainsaw-bearing, bat-swinging, pingpong-playing, philosophising women. It's got happy couples and the bartenders that brought them together. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "Change partners and dance..." but that's a whole story in itself.
75 min., Color and B/W, Unrated, $39.95

The Natural History of Parking Lots

(1994) The Village Voice labeled this "a post-Bruce Weber 'Rebel Without a Cause'" but it's more like high-opera themes of rivalry and mortal loss set to Morrisey tunes. Chris is a loner and a car-thief, so his dad pays brother Lance a few thousand a week to keep an eye on the kid. Chris' coming of age takes place one hot LA season in the shadow of his gunrunning, womanizing, gorgeous older brother. But what will he do when he has to fend for himself?
92 min., B/W, Unrated, $39.95

Train to Hollywood

(1986) This quirky romantic fantasy, of a would-be Marilyn Monroe who sells beer on a local train route, should explain how Roman Polanski was born with the creepy sense of humor David Lynch could only hope to cultivate. "Merlin" doesn't know she's a witch yet. As she sits crouched in a corner, writing furiously to Billy Wilder, she thinks that old joke about the goldfish (who wants to have his pond refilled with vodka) is just a story...
96 min., Color, Polish with English subtitles, Unrated, $39.95

Priced to Rent:

Nea

(1976) First released as "A Young Emmanuelle;" directed by Nelly Kaplan, from the book by Emmanuelle Arsan. CUE's William Wolf called it "a delightfully raunchy satire of male-dominated society," and London's Time Out sighed with relief, "For once, a radical film that is generous, ingenious and alive." An amazing achievement if only because it doesn't scream "1970s," this barely dated film about sexual fantasies and reality is bright, mischievous, and undaunted by everything from heterosexual prudery to male violence. See Article for more details.
103 min., Color, French with English subtitles, Unrated, News: Now repriced to $29.99!

Zazie dans le Metro

(1962) Godard directs Bugs Bunny, or so it seems, when Louis Malle plops a wiseacre girl in kneesocks into the middle of dizzying, mod-60s Paris. She's supposed to be babysat by her uncle, who moonlights as a Spanish dancing girl but is, in spite of that, constantly hounded by a covey of German cheerleaders. They all play hide-and-go seek, scarf down loads of food and waste the rest, make a lot of cheap puns and start their own version of "Can a Guy in a Bear Suit?" At the end of the weekend an exhausted Zazie, when asked what she did while the subway was on strike, answers, "Grew up a little."
92 min., Color, French with yellow English subtitles, Unrated, $69.95

Daughters of the Dust

(1991) Julie Dash's film is most brilliantly captured by Arthur Jafa, who won for best cinematography at Sundance that year. A turn-of-the-century Gullah family debate the wisdom of moving from their island home, off the coast of Georgia, to the Northern US mainland. They teach each other Spanish and creole, and tell their children of enslaved ancestors, who had pieced together a hard-won oral history. Old songs accompany Sears Catalogs; African charms compete with St. Christopher's medals; as two female family members arrive from Cuba draped in ivory and pastel, waving cigarettes and pining for home-cooked food. The family preparations are narrated by one daughter's unborn child, who is already conscious of her life's mission as "one sent forth by the old souls."
113 min., Color, Unrated, $79.95 due for repricing soon...