Home » Movies "500 Nations" Details  500 Nations; (DVD) Not Rated; 372 minutes-5 discs With six episodes spread out over four discs and a running time of well over six hours (in addition to an interactive CD-ROM filled with extra features), director-producer Jack Leustig's sprawling 500 Nations, a history of Indians in North America, is likely the most comprehensive effort of its kind ever undertaken. Mention the word "Indian," and most will conjure up images inspired by myths and movies: teepees, headdresses, and war paint; Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and their battles (like Little Big Horn) with the U.S. Cavalry. Those stories of the so-called "horse nations" of the Great Plains are all here, but so is a great deal more. Using impressive computer imaging, photos, location film footage and breathtaking cinematography, interviews with present-day Indians, books and manuscripts, museum artifacts, and more, Leustig and his crew go back more than a millennium to present an fascinating account of Indians, including those (like the Maya and Aztecs in Mexico and the Anasazi in the Southwest) who were here long before white men ever reached these shores. It was the arrival of Europeans like Columbus, Cortez, and DeSoto that marked the beginning of the end for the Indians. Considering the participation of host Kevin Costner, whose film Dances with Wolves was highly sympathetic to the Indians, it's no bulletin that 500 Nations also takes a compassionate view of the multitude of calamities--from alcohol and disease to the corruption of their culture and the depletion of their vast natural resources--visited on them by the white man in his quest for land and money, eventually leading to such horrific events as the Trail of Tears "forced march," the massacre at Wounded Knee, and other consequences of the effort to "relocate" Indians to the reservations where many of them still live. Along the way, we learn about the Indians' participation in such events as the American Revolution and the War of 1812, as well as popular legends like the first Thanksgiving (it really happened) and the rescue of Captain John Smith by Pocahontas (it probably didn't). With its sometimes New Age-y music and many beauty shots of the great outdoors, 500 Nations has a rather different vibe than the average Ken Burns documentary. That may lessen its value for sober historians, but for the rest of us, this is an illuminating and important work. Product Description 500 Nations is an eight-part documentary that explores the history of the indigenous peoples of North and Central America, from pre-Colombian times through the period of European contact and colonization, to the end of the 19th century and the subjugation of the Plains Indians of North America. 500 Nations utilizes historical texts, eyewitness accounts, pictorial sources and computer graphic reconstructions to explore the magnificent civilizations which flourished prior to contact with Western civilization, and to tell the dramatic and tragic story of the Native American nations' desperate attempts to retain their way of life against overwhelming odds. Price: $76.00 "A Man Called Horse" Details  R Rated; (DVD); 114 minutes; American Indians were a "cool" factor in 1970 cinema, the year A Man Called Horse made its vigorous, feverishly real, and occasionally shocking debut alongside Little Big Man and Soldier Blue. Unlike the latter two films, however, Horse is less an allegory for Vietnam-era America and more of a vision quest for historical identity. In one of his defining roles, Richard Harris plays an English aristocrat captured by Dakota Sioux in 1825. Over time, he adopts their way of life and eventually becomes tribal leader--but not before undergoing traditional initiation rituals, the most famous of which involves being suspended by blades inserted beneath Harris's pectoral muscles. Horse looks clunky, quaint, and inadvertently demeaning in some respects today, but the film's Native American milieu is at least defined on its own terms, i.e., whole cloth and apart from familiar Western conventions. The real draw is Harris, whose performance has a soulful integrity. --Tom Keogh Price: $20.00 "A Thief of Time" Details  Not Rated; (DVD); 95 minutes; A noted anthropologist vanishes at a moonlit Indian ruin where "thieves of time" ravage sacred ground for profit. When two corpses appear amid stolen goods and bones at an ancient burial site, Navajo Tribal Policeman Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee must plunge into the past to unearth the astonishing truth behind a mystifying series of horrific murders. Price: $30.00 "Black Cloud" Details  Black Cloud; (DVD); ‘PG-13’ Rating; 97 minutes; Black Cloud is the impressive directorial debut of veteran actor Rick Schroder, who also wrote the drama's insightful script and takes a small part as an unrepentant villain. The story concerns a Navajo boxer named Black Cloud (Eddie Spears), an angry young man from a violent, chaotic family and a proud warrior burdened by a general grudge against white people. Invited to compete for a slot in the U.S. Olympic boxing team, Black Cloud initially rebuffs the idea but is encouraged to reconsider by his manager and mentor (Russell Means). Meanwhile, Black Cloud delivers a well-deserved beating to a rodeo circuit creep (Schroder), which gets him into hot water with the law, and the Navajo woman he loves (Julia Jones) puts distance between them until he can figure out his priorities. As coming-of-age stories go, Black Cloud is persuasive and moving, yet it should be no surprise that Schroder's greatest strength as a filmmaker is drawing very fine performances from his cast. Means, so wonderful in Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, is again a solid figure of strength and love, while Spears does a beautiful job of capturing a man ready to trade rage for wisdom. Schroder delivers on tough action sequences--rodeo riding, boxing--like a pro who's seen it all, too. --Tom Keogh Price: $14.00 "Black Robe" Details  Black Robe; (DVD); ‘R’ Rating; 101 minutes; From acclaimed director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies) and adapted by screenwriter Brian Moore from his novel of the same name, Black Robe is "amazing an adventure film that is as intelligent as it is enthralling" (US)! French Jesuit missionary Father Laforgue travels to the magnificently austere Canadian wilderness to save the souls of a "savage and godless" people the native tribes of the Huron and Algonquin. But the natives, who have their own spiritual value system that differs drastically from Christianity, are immediately suspicious, resentful and openly hostile toward the intrusive "Black Robe." And when Laforgue hires a reluctant group of Algonquin to escort him on a harrowing 1500-mile journey up the broad and sinuous St. Lawrence River, a devastating chain of events not only causes him to question his deeply held beliefs but also forever changes the course of history for the natives' way of life. Price: $30.00 "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" Details  Not Rated; Run Time of 132 minutes; Two dics set. With an acceptable balance of strengths and weaknesses, HBO's revisionist rendition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee can be recommended as a very basic (if slightly inaccurate) history lesson for younger viewers. It doesn't flinch from the harsh realities that were so passionately chronicled in author Dee Alexander Brown's enduring 1970 classic of Native American history, nor does it soften the brutality of violence between the U.S. federal forces and the doomed Native American tribes who fought to preserve their native territories, from the legendary battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 (depicted in the opening scenes) to the shameful slaughter of Sioux warriors at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on December 29, 1890. Originally broadcast on May 27, 2007, and running slightly over two hours, this U.S./Canadian coproduction struggles to tell a story that would've been better served by a full-length miniseries (and will surely disappoint anyone familiar with Brown's important book), and the screenplay is so busy giving us a Cliff's Notes version of history that it lacks any particular focus or consistent point of view. Instead, we get a sobering, noble, and heartbreaking tale of territorial injustice, with forced parallels to the war in Iraq, full of admirable performances yet riddled with clichés and anachronistic details. If you look closer, however, you'll find much to admire: Although his character was dubiously conceived to appeal to a contemporary white audience, Adam Beach (from Flags of Our Fathers) gives a fine performance as Charles Eastman, a Sioux doctor integrated into white society, who grows increasingly conflicted by the plight of his people. He's the tragic embodiment of the faulty ideals of Senator Dawes (Aidan Quinn), whose governmental effort to assimilate Native Americans leads to disastrous outbreaks of violence, depicted here with blunt-force realism. As Eastman's sympathetic and upright wife (a white schoolteacher with a strong sense of conscience), Anna Paquin makes the most of an underwritten role, and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is an impressive showcase for outstanding native American actors like August Schellenberg (as Sitting Bull) and Gordon Tootoosis (as Red Cloud), who bring obvious authority and conviction to their roles. The film is most effective when addressing the inevitable failure of the white man's well-meaning but ultimately misguided policies toward Native Americans. To the extent that we still struggle with the historical legacy of those policies, this flawed but instructional rendition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee can be viewed as a compact precursor to deeper historical study. --Jeff Shannon Product Description Inspired by Dee Brown's acclaimed bestseller, the HBO Films event begins powerfully with the Sioux triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn. The action centers on the struggles of three characters: Charles Eastman (Adam Beach, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS), a young, Dartmouth-educated Sioux doctor; Sitting Bull (August Schellenberg, THE NEW WORLD), the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of their identity, dignity and sacred land; and Senator Henry Dawes (Aidan Quinn, EMPIRE FALLS), one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale (Anna Paquin, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND), work to improve life for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment. Epic in scope, BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE is a new Western classic called "...insightful...deeply affecting...visually striking" by The Washington Post. Price: $30.00 "Chiefs" Details  Chiefs; (DVD); Not Rated; 87 minutes; Comparisons to Hoop Dreams are inevitable, but Chiefs can claim its own unique perspective on a neglected chapter in the history of high school basketball. Filmed over the course of two years and originally broadcast on the PBS series Independent Lens, this 90-minute documentary chronicles the trials and triumphs of Wyoming Indian High School's championship-seeking boy's basketball team, a source of great community pride among the 5,000 Native American citizens (mostly Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho) of the Wind River Reservation in west-central Wyoming. As the Chiefs survive key-player injuries and other unexpected setbacks in their quest for the state championship, filmmaker Daniel Junge focuses on several players whose lives provide a broad-spectrum profile of life "on the rez," where dire conditions (poverty, alcoholism, racism, youth suicide) turn desperate young men into a close-knit team of title-worthy hoop stars. The combination of tribal tradition and typical high-school peer pressure give the film a compelling subtext of real-life dramatic suspense; even as the Chiefs (a team name that's refreshingly liberated from concerns of political correctness) get closer to state-finals victory, we're left wondering if any of these boys will conquer the many obstacles that block them from a promising future. Particularly involving is the story of Beaver C'Bearing, a star player facing his last chance at a state championship, sidetracked by injury, pot-smoking, and his own uncertainty about where his life is going. Without sentiment or phony cheerleading, Junge follows Beaver and other young men, and Chiefs subtly evolves into a multifaceted portrait of life on the edge, where personal initiative and sheer chance play equal roles in forming young men who've earned, and deserve, their opportunities for success. Junge's choice of subject matter also qualifies Chiefs as one of the most revealing and authentic portraits of modern life on the reservation, where hardship and sociopolitical disadvantage is a harsh daily reality. --Jeff Shannon Price: $25.00 "Christmas in the Clouds" Details  Christmas in the Clouds; (DVD) 'PG' Rating; A classic comedy of mistaken identity and romance set during the holiday season at a ski resort that is owned and operated by a native american nation. A brilliantly funny independent movie filled with memorable characters who behave with the unpredictability of real people. Filmed in late 2001, it won multiple awards at film festivals before being polished and released in 2005- again to positive critical reviews and very enthusiastic audience response. (It was held over at many of the art theatres that screened it.) The film's central conceit- a comedy of errors featuring a mostly Native American cast- establishes a familiar set of expectations that the characters then confound. (The airport scene, for example, which seems about to land in cliche, veers off in a surprising manner.) The cultural setting (with Robert Redford's Sundance standing in for a reservation resort) provides an exotic yet specific context. Serious issues are handled lightly in which serious issues are handled lightly. The obvious comparisons for the film are "Local Hero," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and, most recently "Little Miss Sunshine." Like those films, CITC depends on an ensemble cast, lots of background detail, and most of all, at the center of everything, the often missing element that largest budget in the world can't buy: heart. Price: $20.00 "Clearcut" Details  Clearcut; (DVD) R Rated; 98 minutes; A story of rage--a harrowing action adventure set in the wilderness in which one man tortures another as punishment for his crimes against the invironment. Price: $20.00 "Comanche Moon" Details  Not Rated; Run Time of 360 minutes; Two disc set; It's billed as "the second chapter in the Lonesome Dove saga," but Comanche Moon is actually a prequel to that much-loved 1989 miniseries. And while there's no doubt that it has some very big boots to fill, this three-part (on two DVDs, including bonus features) production is rarely less than eminently watchable and entertaining. Continuity is a positive factor: Larry McMurtry, who wrote the novel on which it's based, also co-wrote the screenplay, and Lonesome Dove director Simon Wincer returns as well. As for the cast, it's certainly not as star-studded as its predecessor, but Steve Zahn (as Gus McCrae), Karl Urban (Woodrow Call), Linda Cardellini (Clara Allen), and the others manage to suggest the characterizations brought to the screen by Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, and Anjelica Huston, respectively, without mimicking them. Of course, there are new faces on hand as well, principally Val Kilmer (looking a mite chubby, perhaps due to all the scenery he chews in his portrayal of Texas Rangers Captain Inish Scull) and Rachel Griffiths (as Scull's horny wife). As the tale begins in 1858, Call and McCrae, some years away from becoming the cattlemen depicted in Lonesome Dove, are Rangers serving under the educated and eccentric Scull as they work to protect the territory against marauding Comanches, led by the stern, vengeful Buffalo Hump (Wes Studi) and his crazed son, Blue Duck (Adam Beach). When Scull's horse is stolen by one of the Indians, he sets out to retrieve the beast, promoting both Call and McRae to Captain, and the rest of the story revolves primarily around them; in fact, although there's a reasonable amount of action (including the Comanche raid on Austin that opens Part Two), Comanche Moon is much less plot-dependent than character-driven, and it is Call (tough, taciturn, and totally clueless when it comes to the fair sex) and best friend McRae (an open-hearted, self-described jester) who are the most engaging of the bunch as they navigate the deep waters of their work and love lives (McRae with Clara and Call with the prostitute Maggie Tilton, played by Elizabeth Banks). McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana's dialogue manages to be at once plain and poetic, colorful and poignant, and regardless of what's actually happening onscreen, the miniseries has a light, often whimsical charm that separates it from most Westerns made for big and small screen alike. Extras include a "making of" featurette and more. Product Description Texas Rangers Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae pursue three outlaws, Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump, Comanche horse thief Kicking Wolf and a Mexican bandit king. Now in their middle years, they also struggle with their personal lives, Gus with Clara Forsythe, the love of his life, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young prostitute who loves him. Meanwhile their partners-in-arms Deets, Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker help the Rangers protect the advancing western frontier from the defiant Comanches who are determined to defend their land and way of life. Prequel to Lonesome Dove, and based upon the novel by Larry McMurty. Price: $30.00 « Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next »