![]() Richard Pryor - I Ain't Dead Yet, #*%$#@!! (Uncensored) $14.98 Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 01/22/2008 Starring: Richard Pryor Jon Stewart Run time: 42 minutes Rating: Nr ![]() The Miles Davis Story $14.98 Trumpeter-bandleader Miles Davis (1926-91) was a catalyst for the major innovations in post-bop, cool jazz, hard-bop, and jazz-fusion, and his wispy and emotional trumpet tones were some of the most evocative sounds ever heard. He was also one of the most identifiable and misunderstood pop icons of the 20th century. This engrossing British documentary shows the complex layers of this magnificent and mercurial artist. Through rare footage and interviews, we learn of Davis's middle-class upbringing and his early days with bop legends Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. The documentary bluntly deals with Davis's narcotic nadir and his rise from the depths to become a bona fide jazz icon in the mid-'50s to late '60s. But the most penetrating and poignant portraits of Davis come from musicians who played with and were influenced by him, including Shirley Horn, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, and Keith Jarrett. Outstanding musical selections include modal masterpieces "So What" and "Blue in Green," the haunting soundtrack to the 1957 French film Ascenseur pour l'¸«±chafaud, his romantic rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," and his collaborations with arranger Gil Evans. The most surprising aspects of Davis's personality that emerge from this film are his shyness, vulnerability, and, yes, humility. As he said himself, "Don't call me a legend. Call me Miles Davis." --Eugene Holley Jr. ![]() Eric Clapton - Live in Hyde Park $24.98 Eric Clapton has achieved the seemingly impossible, becoming more popular in his most recent 10 years onstage than in his first decade in the spotlight. His 1997 Live In Hyde Park home video documented a triumphant concert of the previous summer that followed his massive "Tears In Heaven" hit a few years earlier. This is classic rockin' and guitar-wailin' blues-is-king Clapton, from new versions of his Derek and The Dominos' "Layla" and "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" to Cream's "White Room" and "Badge" to his solo hit of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" to B.B. King's "Every Day I Have the Blues." Added to the original home video's lineup is Clapton's rendition of the Muddy Waters electric blues "Hoochie Coochie Man" and the blues standard "It Hurts Me Too," which Clapton reprised on From the Cradle. Other tracks include: Wonderful Tonight; Five Long Years; Tearin' Us Apart; Old Love; I'm Torn Down; Holy Mother. 89 minutes. ![]() Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure $12.00 Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a thousand glimpses of humanity—six words at a time. One Life. Six Words. What's Yours? When Hemingway famously wrote, "For Sale: baby shoes, never worn," he proved that an entire story can be told using a half dozen words. When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving. From small sagas of bittersweet romance ("Found true love, married someone else") to proud achievements and stinging regrets ("After Harvard, had baby with crackhead"), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-sized pieces. From authors Jonathan Lethem and Richard Ford to comedians Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell. |
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