Third Day, The - DVD

The great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang has been directing exquisite examinations of alienation, isolation, and the fleeting beauty of human connection featuring his muse Lee Kang-sheng for decades. His latest film, DAYS, will undoubtedly stand as one of his best, sparest, and most intimate works. Lee once again stars as a variation on himself, wandering through a lonely urban landscape and seeking treatment in Hong Kong for a chronic illness; at the same time, a young Laotian immigrant working in Bangkok, played by Anong Houngheuangsy, goes about his daily routine. These two solitary men eventually come together in a moment of healing, tenderness, and sexual . Among the most cathartic entries in Tsai's filmography, DAYS is a work of longing, constructed with the director's customary brilliance at visual composition and shot through with profound empathy.

In his last film -- and only Talkie -- Lon Chaney recreates one of his famed Silent roles: the scheming ventriloquist Prof. Echo. Disguised as Grandma O'Grady, Echo heads a robbery ring that includes a feeble-minded strongman and a cigar-chomping little person, the latter masquerading as Grandma's grandbaby. Known as the Man of a Thousand Faces, Chaney here displays a different kind of virtuosity as well, creating five different voices

Susan Ertz's novel of romantic intrigue in scenic Athens comes to the big screen under the stewardship of John Houseman. Producer Houseman elevates the story above mere sudser status by recruiting a powerhouse quartet of players to play the intertwined couple: a young Jane Fonda (in her third motion picture performance), Angela Lansbury, Peter Finch and Arthur Hill (fresh from his award winning run in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf). Fo