Facets Movie Lovers Video Guide

The most select "best of" list available anywhere.

No self-respecting movie lover can do without the Facets Complete Video Catalog. The most comprehensive, authoritative source for 27,000 movies on video and laser disc, the catalog is one-of-a-kind guide to foreign, classic American, independent, cult, silent, documentary, experimental films and television programs. The Facets Complete Video Catalog is an indispensable reference for thousands of film scholars and a welcome bedside or TV companion for anyone who loves the movies.

'Focus on African Films' offers pluralistic perspectives on filmmaking across Africa, highlighting the distinct thematic, stylistic, and socioeconomic circumstances of African film production.

One of Akira Kurosawa's most popular films, Yojimbo (1961) tells the story of a vagrant samurai who outsmarts two gangs warring to control a small town in mid-19th century Japan. This plot a lone hero who challenges both potent rivals struggling to control a place has proved remarkably adaptable. Recent film settings include the American southwest, New York, the coast of Ireland, Viking Iceland, and outer space. The rivals include drug dealers, police, witches, and seals, the hero a hit-man, a psychopath, a senior, an orphan. These films track the basic plot or veer off in unexpected directions. They provide an evening's delight or arouse enduring intellectual engagement with a wide variety of disciplines. Rhapsody on a Film by Kurosawa explores this cultural complex. Films discussed include American Beauty (1999), Donnie Darko (2001), The King of Masks (1996), Memento (2000), Ponette (1996), Requiem for a Dream (2000), Se7en (1995), and The Witches (1990). Other sections discuss possible origins of the plot in the work of Dashiell Hammett and Shakespeare, a Yojimbo hero who emerged in the final days of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the relation of Yojimbo to Kurosawa's cinematic career. Rhapsody on a Film by Kurosawa is the author's first book.