 | Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment by Janet Kardon
Buy new: $22.00 / Used from: $7.93 Book (fine arts.) Five Stars: Perfect Light, Perfect Darkness, An Astonishing Artist. Catalogue of the controversial exhibit.
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 | Stalag 17
Buy used from: $2.50 DVD. Five Stars: A Memorable Comedy-Drama Comes To DVD. The DVD is truly no-frills, but the ensemble cast and a snappy black comedy script make for a winning combo.
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 | The Essential Mahalia Jackson by Mahalia Jackson
Buy new: $24.98 / Used from: $4.01 Gospel Music CD. Five Stars: Aptly Titled, A Great Collection by a Great Artist. A knock-out intro to this influential singer.
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 | 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.01 Book (fiction.) Five Stars: Beautiful Darkness. Stephen King has had a host of winners, but you just can't do better than this multi-layered novel.
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 | Twisted Christmas by Bob Rivers
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $3.71 Seasonal Music CD. Four Stars: Have Yourself a Neurotic Little Christmas! A few misfires, but overall wickedly funny.
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 | Yojimbo (Criterion Collection Spine #52)
Buy used from: $8.24 DVD. Five Stars: Death in the Dust and the Wind. Certainly one of the most influential films of the 20th Century, remade as A Fistful of Dollars.
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 | Throne of Blood - Criterion Collection
Buy new: $27.99 / Used from: $18.78 DVD. Five Stars: A Kurosawa Classic. A powerful Japanese interpretation of a Shakespearean classic.
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 | Z
Buy used from: $18.00 DVD. Five Stars: Memorable Film in an Excellent DVD Restoration. The single highest grossing foreign language film of the 1970s.
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 | Mahalia Sings Songs of Christmas! by Mahalia Jackson
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $3.60 Seasonal Music CD. Five Stars: In The True Christmas Spirit. An amazing collection of Christmas favorites.
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 | The Terror / Bucket of Blood
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $1.54 DVD. Three Stars: Roger Corman Double Feature. So-so prints, but both films have lots of "cult" appeal.
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 | Diamond Life by Sade
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $3.75 Music CD. Five Stars: Pure Liquid Elegance. Simply one of the finest pop-jazz fusions within recent memory.
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 | Frankenstein (Bantam Classics) by Mary Shelley
Buy new: $4.95 / Used from: $0.01 Book (fiction.) Five Stars: More Relevant Today Than When First Written. Although you'll have to jump through a hoops to enjoy it, Shelly's novel is still amazing.
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 | Postcards from America
Buy new: $26.99 / Used from: $9.39 DVD. Four Stars: An Extremely Interesting Failure. Indie/Art House film based on the life of controversial artist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992)
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| Dangerous Female (The Maltese Falcon) (1931-USA) [VHS]
VHS. Four Stars: Original, Intriguing Film Version of The Maltese Falcon. An early, sometimes awkward, but always interesting "pre-code" version.
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 | Titus
Buy used from: $4.52 DVD. Four Stars: Unexpectedly Memorable, But Not Entirely Successful. Director Julie Taymor puts Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus through a fascinating theatrical wringer.
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 | Trouble in Shangri-La by Stevie Nicks
Buy new: $7.98 / Used from: $0.25 Music CD. Five Stars: Stevie Nicks, Pure and Simple. Very clean, very complex, and something you'll listen to repeatedly.
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 | The Legend of Hell House
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $4.99 DVD. Four Stars: Flawed But Memorable. The plot is pretty much lifted from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, but this unpretentious flick is solid.
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 | Trio by Dolly Parton
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $3.52 Music CD. Five Stars: Perfection. Although Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Rondstadt seem an unlikely combo--well, just trust me here. A real winner!
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 | Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro by Andre Soares
Buy used from: $15.00 Biography. Five Stars: The Star Who Fell From Grace. The tale of a great star of the silent screen who couldn't ride his fame to a safe shore.
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 | Best of Bowie by David Bowie
Buy new: $17.99 / Used from: $10.49 Music CD. Four Stars: Abbreviated Selections Mar Otherwise Superior Collection. A good place to start if you're new to Bowie's amazing body of work.
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 | Salome / Lot in Sodom
Buy new: $22.49 / Used from: $14.98 DVD. Four Stars: The Notorious Art Classic. Based on the infamous play by Oscar Wilde and starring Nazimova, SALOME virtually created the American art film.
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 | The Lost World (Tor Classics) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Buy used from: $0.01 Book (fiction.) Four Stars: A Memorable Early "Pulp" Adventure. Not quite up to Doyle's Sherlock Holmes standards, but a tremendous amount of fun nonetheless.
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 | Puppetry of the Penis: The Ancient Art of Genital Origami
Buy used from: $17.98 DVD (stand-up comedy). Four Stars: Show and Tell. This will never make any critic's short list, but it's lots of silly fun.
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 | Rock a Little by Stevie Nicks
Buy new: $11.98 / Used from: $3.59 Music CD. Four Stars: Solid, But Not As Inspired As Nicks' Previous Work. The arrangements and production are way too heavy handed, but even so Nicks still delivers.
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 | Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Buy new: $11.49 / Used from: $6.00 DVD. Five Stars: Memorable Film in Excellent No-Frills DVD Release. The original, and in my opinion the best, version of the famous "take over" sci-fi horror thriller.
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