Set against the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980, Ben Afflecks Argo is a nerve-jangling footnote to the birth of Ayatollah Khomeinis Islamic Republic. The movie opens at the crest of the 1979 revolution--the storming of the US embassy in Tehran, and the escape of six diplomats to the precarious safety of the Canadian ambassadors residence. To the rescue is Tony Mendez--a composed CIA agent whose heroism remained classified until 1997--and his state-approved plan to get the stranded embassy staff out of Iran under a brazen cover story: theyre an innocent film crew on a location hunt for the fake sci-fi blockbuster Argo. Hollywood is usually pressed into the service of the state in the name of comedy (either burying dictators in Team America: World Police or just bad news in Barry Levinsons Wag the Dog), but Argo is a true story, and the tone of Affleck's Oscar-winning script is carefully split, switching between mounting tension in consular Tehran and a satire of the Hollywood machine as fronted by Alan Arkin and John Goodman--two raffish producers hired by Mendez to reverse-engineer some convincing buzz for the Argo movie. Affleck himself takes the role of Mendez, the steady-eyed agent betting everything on Hollywoods age-old efficiency at creating a media circus for a project long before it exists. History starts out as farce and ends up a tragedy, remarks Goodman, but Argo ends on a patriotic upbeat, and doesnt reflect much on history. It politely nods at the context of Irans attitude to the West, and were told about but not shown--bar the blank rage of the revolutionary mob--Irans anger at the Westerly flow of resources under Shah Pahlavi. Instead, Argo concentrates on the eggshell complexities of deception in plain sight, including a climactic set-piece in which Mendez team must fend their way through layers of suspicious Iranian airport security--with imminent capture, execution and political calamity only on the other side of their paper-thin pretext. It may have the ring of historical escapism, but Argo holds its nerve as a great Hollywood escape. --Leo Batchelor /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
Set against the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980, Ben Afflecks Argo is a nerve-jangling footnote to the birth of Ayatollah Khomeinis Islamic Republic. The movie opens at the crest of the 1979 revolution--the storming of the US embassy in Tehran, and the escape of six diplomats to the precarious safety of the Canadian ambassadors residence. To the rescue is Tony Mendez--a composed CIA agent whose heroism remained classified until 1997--and his state-approved plan to get the stranded embassy staff out of Iran under a brazen cover story: theyre an innocent film crew on a location hunt for the fake sci-fi blockbuster Argo. Hollywood is usually pressed into the service of the state in the name of comedy (either burying dictators in Team America: World Police or just bad news in Barry Levinsons Wag the Dog), but Argo is a true story, and the tone of Affleck's Oscar-winning script is carefully split, switching between mounting tension in consular Tehran and a satire of the Hollywood machine as fronted by Alan Arkin and John Goodman--two raffish producers hired by Mendez to reverse-engineer some convincing buzz for the Argo movie. Affleck himself takes the role of Mendez, the steady-eyed agent betting everything on Hollywoods age-old efficiency at creating a media circus for a project long before it exists. History starts out as farce and ends up a tragedy, remarks Goodman, but Argo ends on a patriotic upbeat, and doesnt reflect much on history. It politely nods at the context of Irans attitude to the West, and were told about but not shown--bar the blank rage of the revolutionary mob--Irans anger at the Westerly flow of resources under Shah Pahlavi. Instead, Argo concentrates on the eggshell complexities of deception in plain sight, including a climactic set-piece in which Mendez team must fend their way through layers of suspicious Iranian airport security--with imminent capture, execution and political calamity only on the other side of their paper-thin pretext. It may have the ring of historical escapism, but Argo holds its nerve as a great Hollywood escape. --Leo Batchelor
Master filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci applies his considerable talent to this haunting adaptation of the Paul Bowles novel. John Malkovich and Debra Winger play Port and Kit Moresby, characters loosely based on Bowles and his wife Jane, who flee New York for North Africa, where they hope to find mystical truths that will reignite the spark of their marriage. But instead they lose their moral bearings (with help from a friend, played by Campbell Scott, who has an affair with Kit) while travelling deeper and deeper into the Sahara. Before long, what started as a vacation at exotic lodgings has descended into a tour of hell, as they stumble farther and farther into an unknowable spiritual territory. Though long and at times slow-moving, The Sheltering Sky features marvellously nuanced acting by Malkovich and Winger and visionary filmmaking that makes the landscape at once picturesque and threatening. --Marshall Fine
From the moment that Prince Eric's ship emerged from the fog in the opening credits of The Little Mermaid in 1989 it was apparent that Disney had somehow, suddenly recaptured a "magic" that had been dormant for 30 years. In the tale of a headstrong young mermaid who yearns to "spend a day, warm on the sand", Ariel trades her voice to Ursula, the Sea Witch (classically voiced by Pat Carroll), for a pair of legs. Ariel can only succeed if she receives true love's kiss in a few day's time and she needs all the help she can from a singing crab named Sebastian, a loudmouth seagull and a flounder. The lyrics and music by song-writing team Howard Ashman and Alan Menken are top form: witty and relevant, and they advance the story (go on, hum a few bars of "Under the Sea"). Mermaid put animation back on the studio's "to do" list and was responsible for ushering 1991's Beauty and the Beast into cinemas. A modern Disney classic. --Keith Simanton
Instantly recognisable in his red sweater and yellow check trousers and scarf the ever lovable Ruprt Bear joins his friends; Bill Badger Algy Pug Podgy Pig Edward Trunk Pong Ping and Tigerlily for more extraordinary adventures in Nut Wood. Rupert And Ginger: Rupert's encounter with a friendly Stegosaurus in Nut Wood Forest leads him on an adventure to the Jurassic era. Once there he helps his friend The Wise Old Goat repair his malfunctioning time machne and avoid becoming Tyrannosaurus' next meal. Rupert And Pong Ping: When Rupert and Pong Ping journey to China the Emperor's pet dragon becomes jealous of Pong Ping and has him kidnapped by a ferocious fire breathing relative. Rupert embarks on a daring adventure to rescue his friend and in doing so seals the friendship between the emperor and his pet dargon. Rupert And Little Yum: Rupert chooses to disobey his friend Officer Growler and the laws he represents in order to free a rare baby aboninable snowman from the influencial Sir Jasper. However it's only when he plays by Growler's rules that Rupert is able to help his new friend understand that although it may seem slow the law is fair and does punish the wrongdoers.
Helen Mirren returns in triumph to the role that brought her international stardom, police inspector Jane Tennison, in the sixth series of Prime Suspect. Tennison finds herself being pressured to retire and responds by seizing a difficult homicide investigation: a young female Bosnian refugee has been tortured and murdered. As the trail begins to suggest connections to war atrocities in the Balkans, Tennison finds herself struggling with resistance from higher up, uncooperative and ambitious underlings, and deeply buried secrets. The strength of Prime Suspect has always been how it merges suspenseful detective work with an intricate grasp of police politics, and The Last Witness is no exception. The plot unfolds masterfully, the programme is directed with striking visual style, and Mirren commands the screen. Her authority in this role, honed through five previous series, is unmatchable; the richness of the character--steely, sexy, obsessive, rash, cunning--makes Prime Suspect essential viewing. --Bret Fetzer
Nadia is the mail-order bride of sweet but dull bank clerk John, and although she's as beautiful as he hoped she's hardly the ideal non-smoking, English speaking wife he hoped for...
For a long term space mission reclusive scientist Jeff Peters (Malkovich) builds his exact double in android form! However as Peters has no social skills he is unable to program Ulysses (also Malkovich) with a personality. Thus an eccentric woman is hired to educate the mechanical man on human behaviour and she is soon falling in love. However is she in love with Ulysses or Peters?
She paid five bucks for it. Now she's asking fifty million. Teri Horton is a 73-year-old former long-haul truck driver with an eighth grade education. When she bought a painting in a thrift shop for five dollars she didn't know that it would pit her against the highest and mightiest people in the art world and perhaps change forever the way art is authenticated. Harry Moses' intriguing and humorous documentary about art authentication introduces everyday citizens who have stu
Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) returns for a sixth investigation and another battle with the male establishment. Tennison is back in London heading a large murder squad dealing with numerous cases. She's facing the prospect of early retirement and has ambitious underlings snapping at her heels. When the body of a young Bosnian woman is found with evidence of torture Tennison takes personal charge of the case. Her investigation leads her to one possibly two Serbian war criminals eager to silence the last witness to a massacre a decade before.
The one film in John Cusack's filmography he'd probably like us all to forget, this 80s-style preppy-in-peril film (compare and contrast with After Hours and Something Wild) casts him as a college student who gets mixed up with pirates and drug runners around the Caribbean. The wannabe screwball comedy falls flatter with each gag but Cusack's hang-dog sweetness and knack with one-liners carries it through and at the very least it's worth catching if only for a glimpse of Ben Stiller in his pre-There's Something About Mary fame days, in a double act here with his real-life father Jerry Stiller. --Leslie Felperin
Set against the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980, Ben Afflecks Argo is a nerve-jangling footnote to the birth of Ayatollah Khomeinis Islamic Republic. The movie opens at the crest of the 1979 revolution--the storming of the US embassy in Tehran, and the escape of six diplomats to the precarious safety of the Canadian ambassadors residence. To the rescue is Tony Mendez--a composed CIA agent whose heroism remained classified until 1997--and his state-approved plan to get the stranded embassy staff out of Iran under a brazen cover story: theyre an innocent film crew on a location hunt for the fake sci-fi blockbuster Argo. Hollywood is usually pressed into the service of the state in the name of comedy (either burying dictators in Team America: World Police or just bad news in Barry Levinsons Wag the Dog), but Argo is a true story, and the tone of Affleck's Oscar-winning script is carefully split, switching between mounting tension in consular Tehran and a satire of the Hollywood machine as fronted by Alan Arkin and John Goodman--two raffish producers hired by Mendez to reverse-engineer some convincing buzz for the Argo movie. Affleck himself takes the role of Mendez, the steady-eyed agent betting everything on Hollywoods age-old efficiency at creating a media circus for a project long before it exists. History starts out as farce and ends up a tragedy, remarks Goodman, but Argo ends on a patriotic upbeat, and doesnt reflect much on history. It politely nods at the context of Irans attitude to the West, and were told about but not shown--bar the blank rage of the revolutionary mob--Irans anger at the Westerly flow of resources under Shah Pahlavi. Instead, Argo concentrates on the eggshell complexities of deception in plain sight, including a climactic set-piece in which Mendez team must fend their way through layers of suspicious Iranian airport security--with imminent capture, execution and political calamity only on the other side of their paper-thin pretext. It may have the ring of historical escapism, but Argo holds its nerve as a great Hollywood escape. --Leo Batchelor /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
As a scantily dressed nurse goes to answer the phone a huge hairy hand reaches out and grabs her by the throat. The following morning she is found strangled having been brutally sexually assaulted. The telephone murders have begun. One after another young girls throughout the city meet the same stranger and the same fate. They all have two things in common they live alone and they are clients of Dr. Lindsay Gale. Somebody has decided it is quicker to kill than cure.
Rebellious and outgoing Smadar can't stand types like Mirit. Mirit introverted and frightened keeps away from the likes of Smadar. But the two are thrown together as they are assigned to a patrol in Jerusalem as part of their compulsory military service. Their job is to stop Palestinian passersby to ask for their identity cards and to write down their details on special forms. You don't move from this place don't sit down don't smoke don't eat don't talk on your cell phones says their commander leaving them alone on the street with their patrol forms. What will they do now? This is the story of two 18-year-old girls who are busy with their own worlds--falling in love break-ups and the volatile relationship between the two--in an attempt to ignore the political reality in a city that slowly makes its way into their lives.
Tales Of Ordinary Madness (1981): Based on stories by Charles Bukowski like much of his work there's an overtly autobiographical feel throughout. Ben Gazzara stars as Charles Serking the archetypal Bukowski protagonist; moving through a variety of drunken scenarios bedding a bevy of increasingly bizarre women in the process... Don't Touch The White Woman! (1974): Marcello Mastroianni stars as General George Armstrong Custer in this bizarre French farce where Nixon i
Fairy tale fantasy adventure starring Ben Cross, Jane March and Jamie Atkins. When Jack (Atkins) plants some magic beans, causing a giant beanstalk to grow into the clouds, he doesn't realise that he has unleashed a wealth of huge beasts who are now headed for his hometown and are far from friendly...
Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979. Product Features Picture-in-Picture: eyewitness account Rescued From Tehran: We were there Feature-length Commentary (On 4K And Blu-ray) With director Ben Affleck and writer Chris Terrio
This side-splittingly funny box set contains 'There's Something about Mary: Special Edition' and 'Stuck On You'. Something About Mary: Still suffering from a High School crush on Mary (Cameron Diaz) the nerdy angst-driven Ted (Ben Stiller) tracks her down thirteen years later with the help of a sleazy private investigator (Matt Dillon) who also falls for her. Unfortunately both men discover that virtually every man who sets his eyes on the dazzling Mary finds himself head over heels in love and determined to win her hand. The wacky Farrelly Brothers have pushed the envelope again creating another outrageous movie experience guaranteed to make you laugh and keep you coming back for more. Stuck On You: Conjoined twins Bob (Damon) and Walt (Kinnear) move to Los Angeles so that Walt can more actively pursue his dream of being a successful actor. After a chance appearance on Cher's TV show the pair become celebrities overnight but as Bob's internet girlfriend (Mendes) is about to uncover his secret the sudden success threatens to drive the two brothers apart...
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