Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) is searching for a wife. Because of a complicated situation he needs a mate so he can qualify as king of the land. The 3-foot-tall despot has already banished all the fairy tale characters from his land resulting in a diaspora of familiar bedtime figures. Shrek (Mike Myers) and the obnoxious Donkey (Eddie Murphy) factor in when Farquaad concludes that he needs dragon-slaying assistance. The woman he wants is the beautiful Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) who's imprisoned in a castle by said dragon. To cut a deal to keep his house the antisocial Shrek accepts the mission except he falls in love with the princess he's been ordered to find!
Trying to explain the cult appeal of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China to the uninitiated is no easy task. The plot in a nutshell follows lorry driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) into San Francisco's Chinatown, where he's embroiled in street gang warfare over the mythical/magical intentions of would-be god David Lo Pan. There are wire-fu fight scenes, a floating eyeball and monsters from other dimensions. Quite simply it belongs to a genre of its own. Carpenter was drawing on years of chop-socky Eastern cinema tradition, which, at the time of the film's first release in 1986, was regrettably lost on a general audience. Predictably, it bombed. But now that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have made it big in the West, and Hong Kong cinema has spread its influence across Hollywood, it's much, much easier to enjoy this film's happy-go-lucky cocktail of influences. Russell's cocky anti-hero is easy to cheer on as he "experiences some very unreasonable things" blundering from one fight to another, and lusts after the gorgeously green-eyed Kim Cattrall. The script is peppered with countless memorable lines, too ("It's all in the reflexes"). Originally outlined as a sequel to the equally obscure Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Big Trouble is a bona fide cult cinema delight. Jack sums up the day's reactions perfectly, "China is here? I don't even know what the Hell that means!". On the DVD: Big Trouble in Little China is released as a special edition two-disc set in its full unedited form. Some real effort has been put into both discs' animated menus, and the film itself is terrific in 2.35:1 and 5.1 (or DTS). The commentary by Carpenter and Russell may not be as fresh as their chat on The Thing, but clearly they both retain an enormous affection for the film. There are eight deleted scenes (some of which are expansions of existing scenes), plus a separate extended ending which was edited out for the right reasons. You'll also find a seven-minute featurette from the time of release, a 13-minute interview with FX guru Richard Edlund, a gallery of 200 photos, 25 pages of production notes and magazine articles from American Cinematographer and Cinefex. Best of all for real entertainment value is a music video with Carpenter and crew (the Coupe de Villes) coping with video FX and 80s hair-dos.--Paul Tonks
Something very strange is happening in the quiet coastal village of Potters Bluff where tourists and transients are warmly welcomed then brutally murdered! Even more shocking is when these slain strangers suddenly reappear as normal friendly citizens around town... Now the local sheriff and an eccentric mortician must uncover the horrific secret of a community where some terrifying traditions are alive and well: no one is ever truly dead and buried!
A DEADLY NEW ATTRACTION! The most famous shark of all time is back bigger and more terrifying than ever in Jaws 3 starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. Everyone at Florida's Sea World is thrilled with the new Undersea Kingdom, a maze of underwater plexiglass tunnels that permits visitors to get closer to marine life than ever before. The opening ceremonies include many important guests and one uninvited baby shark who accidentally enters the park's lagoon through a faulty sea gate and subsequently dies. The young shark's 35-foot mother soon follows her offspring, creating the most horrifying tale of terror ever flmed in the water. Directed by Joe Alves, the original Jaws designer, and co-written by Carl Gottlieb who penned the frst two blockbusters, this action-packed adventure will have you screaming for your life.
Speed (1994): Hold on tight for a rush of pulse-pounding thrills breathtaking stunts and unexpected romance in a film you'll want to see again and again. Keanu Reeves stars as Jack Traven an LAPD Swat team specialist who is sent to defuse a bomb that a revenge-driven extortionist (Dennis Hopper) has planted on a bus. But until he does Jack and passenger Sandra Bullock must keep the bus speeding through the streets of Los Angeles at more than 50 miles an hour - or the bomb wi
Three episodes of the acclaimed crime series starry Telly Savalas: ""Death is Not a Passing Grade"" ""Last Rites for a Dead Priest"" and ""Deliver Us From Evil"".
A series of '50s box-office hits including Genevieve and A Night to Remember established Kenneth More as one of Britain's most accomplished and durable leading men and this bittersweet 1963 comedy further demonstrated the breadth of his talent. The Comedy Man features one of More's most compelling and sympathetic performances as an embattled but resolutely upbeat provincial actor staring middle age and failure in the face; wry touching and deftly scripted with a superb supporting cast it is easy to see why More ranked this film among his favourites. The Comedy Man is presented here in a brand-new digital transfer from the original film elements in its original aspect ratio. Following an indiscretion involving the producer's wife rep actor Chick Byrd is fired from the play in which he has had a leading role. Heading to London in search of bigger and better things he is reunited with a number of similarly straitened thespians as well as his spirited kind-hearted former love Judy. But it seems Byrd may be poised to find fame and even some fortune when in desperation he manages to land himself the starring role in a deodorant commercial... Special Features: Original Theatrical Trailer Image Gallery Original Promotional PDF
David Lynch peeks behind the picket fences of small-town America to reveal a corrupt shadow world of malevolence, sadism and madness. From the opening shots Lynch turns the Technicolor picture postcard images of middle-class homes and tree-lined lanes into a dreamy vision on the edge of nightmare. After his father collapses in a preternaturally eerie sequence, college boy Kyle MacLachlan returns home and stumbles across a severed human ear in a vacant lot. With the help of sweetly innocent high school girl (Laura Dern), he turns junior detective and uncovers a frightening yet darkly compelling world of voyeurism and sex. Drawn deeper into the brutal world of drug dealer and blackmailer Frank, played with raving mania by an obscenity-shouting Dennis Hopper in a career-reviving performance, he loses his innocence and his moral bearings when confronted with pure, unexplainable evil. Isabella Rossellini is terrifyingly desperate as Hopper's sexual slave who becomes MacLachlan's illicit lover, and Dean Stockwell purrs through his role as Hopper's oh-so-suave buddy. Lynch strips his surreally mundane sets to a ghostly austerity, which composer Angelo Badalamenti encourages with the smooth, spooky strains of a lush score. Blue Velvet is a disturbing film that delves into the darkest reaches of psycho-sexual brutality and simply isn't for everyone. But for a viewer who wants to see the cinematic world rocked off its foundations, David Lynch delivers a nightmarish masterpiece. --Sean Axmaker
Look ma, no script! As expected from a movie by Hong Kong action director Hark Tsui, there are many explosive, fast-paced sequences in this Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle. Some are thrilling, others inconsequential. There is also another mumbling, overdone performance by Mickey Rourke, who looks as if he performed his own plastic surgery. Except for an unintentionally humorous ending, the only surprise is Dennis Rodman as Van Damme's partner in exploitation. Rodman has plenty of charisma, but needs someone to weed out those inferior scripts. He plays an eccentric arms dealer coerced by an avenging Van Damme into tracking down the evil and sadistically weird character played by a well-muscled Rourke. It says little for the production that the best sequence of the movie occurs a quarter of the way into the action. It concerns an escape by Van Damme from an island think tank for forcibly retired covert agents. After that, everyone should have gone home. --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com
Layer Cake: Matthew Vaughn the producer of 'Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels' and 'Snatch' steps into the director's chair for the first time with 'Layer Cake'. Based upon JJ Connelly's London crime novel 'Layer Cake' is about a successful cocaine dealer (Daniel Craig) who has earned a respected place among England's Mafia elite and plans an early retirement from the business. However big boss Jimmy Price (Cranham) hands down a tough assignment: find Charlotte Ryder the
Oscar® winner* Patty Duke stars in the tense and claustrophobic psychological thriller, You'll Like My Mother. When her husband is killed in Vietnam, Francesca Kinsolving (Duke) finds herself alone...and pregnant. She makes her way to Minnesota in order to meet her late husband's mother, certain that she'll be greeted with open arms. But Francesca soon discovers that there may be more to the Kinsolving family than she ever imagined...and that this simple family reunion is only the beginning of a waking nightmare. Rosemary Murphy (To Kill A Mockingbird), Richard Thomas (The Waltons), and Sian Barbara Allen (who was nominated for a Golden Globe® for her performance) also star in this intriguing, tautly directed thriller [that delivers] a high level of terror and tension (TV Guide)!
Released to box-office indifference in 1986, Manhunter introduced Hannibal Lecter and established the rules of the modern race to find serial killer thriller five years before The Silence of the Lambs packed cinemas everywhere. This was Michael Mann's third feature, reuniting William L Petersen and Dennis Farina from his debut Thief (1981) as FBI agents hunting the killer dubbed "The Tooth Fairy". Petersen's Will Graham is the man who put Lecktor (as it is spelt here) behind bars, and as in Lambs consults with the Doctor, played with understated malevolence by Brian Cox. Manhunter is an exceptionally well-photographed film: Mann's regular cinematographer Dante Spinotti created sparse, elegantly framed, often mono-chromatically lit compositions which are essential to the shifting psychological moods. The performances are very good, and the typically 1980s, Vangelis-esque electronic score effectively sustains tension. Once the killer is introduced the scenes with Joan Allen have a genuinely unsettling, almost surreal quality. There is at least one serious plot flaw--how does "The Red Dragon" get his letter to Lecktor? Manhunter never packs the sheer excitement of Lambs, nevertheless, it is a powerful and compelling thriller which remains far superior to the third instalment in the series, Hannibal (2001). On the DVD: In addition to the trailer there is a revealing 10-minute conversation with Dante Spinotti in which he explains how he created the very distinctive look of Manhunter. Also included is a more general 17-minute retrospective "making-of" documentary. This is good but too short, the extras failing to live up to the wealth of material on the Lambs and Hannibal DVDs. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 image is generally very good, being just a little soft in one or two early scenes. The sound is listed as Dolby Digital 5.1, but appears to replicate the main stereo signal in the rear channels. Audio is none the less powerful and clear, though lacks the sheer edge and atmospherics of some more recent thrillers. --Gary S Dalkin
DRAGONHEART Knight Bowen (Dennis Quaid) attempts to instill the values of King Arthur in his pupil Prince Einon in the hope that he will rule more wisely than his tyrannical father. Einon is given one half of a dragon's heart after he is wounded in return for promising to rule well but he reneges on his promise by becoming as big a tyrant as his father. Disillusioned Bowen vows to kill every dragon in existence. Years later he meets the dragon Drago (voiced by Sean Connery) and after initial hostility the two strike up an unlikely friendship. DRAGONHEART:A NEW BEGINNING Following on from the 1996 film 'DragonHeart' orphaned stable boy Geoff (Chris Masterson) stumbles across Drake the world's sole surviving dragon. Together they take on the bandits who threaten the peace of Geoff's homestead and in doing so become heroes. DRAGONHEART 3: THE SORCERER'S CURSE An aspiring knight struggles to save a dragon from a spell cast on him by an evil druid.The third installment in the DragonHeart franchise.
Set in a strange, colourful land populated by fairy tale characters, Shrek is a hilarious comedy that will win over audiences of children and adults alike. Shrek (voiced by Mike Myers) is a fearsome green ogre living in isolation in his own cosy little swamp. He is not receptive to visitors, and fends off the occasional party of torch-wielding villagers with ease. But when the power-hungry Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) turns Shrek's swamp into a relocation camp for dozens of banished fairy-tale characters (including some pesky dwarves, wolves, and fairies) Shrek's quiet, introverted life is ruined. Joined by the talkative Donkey (Eddie Murphy), Shrek makes his way to Farquaad's realm of Duloc, where the Lord promises to make Shrek an offer: He will rid Shrek's land of the unwanted visitors if Shrek will go on a simple quest to free Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) from her remote, dragon-guarded castle and convince her to marry Farquaad. On their quest, Shrek and Donkey run into a number of bizarre situations, and Shrek finds himself realising that he isn't quite the fearsome monster he has always made himself out to be. Reinventing the traditional fairy tale adventure, Shrek features gorgeous computer animation, a unique sense of humour, and compelling characters - especially Murphy's lovable Donkey.
Psycho: The classic Hitchcock thriller involving a series of murders at a lonely motel where the deaths are attributed to the mother of the young owner. Psycho 2: Norman Bates is coming home after spending 22 years in a mental institution. He plans to renovate the old Bates Motel the place where his first murders occurred... Psycho 3: The Bates Motel is again the site of some nasty doings as the rehabilitated Norman who has installed a new ice machine att
Hedonism isn't just for breakfast anymore. Or so learns TV commercial director Paul (Peter Fonda) on his first LSD trip: a mind-blowing passage through surreal images and stroboscopic light shows... Written by Jack Nicholson and directed by Roger Corman 'The Trip' takes you to a whole new world of extreme beauty and sheer terror on a passport the size of a stamp!
Charles Fuller adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play for the big screen in 1984. The film version, A Soldier's Story is essentially a murder mystery, played out against a background of inter and intra-racial conflict at a Second World War training camp. To the consternation of his white opposite number at the camp, a black captain (Howard W Rollins) arrives to investigate the death of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar). Suspicion immediately falls on a pair of bigoted white officers but as the tale unfolds in a series of flashbacks, it soon becomes clear that a different kind of prejudice is also at work. Assisted by some excellent performances, director Norman Jewison opens the story out from its stage roots. There's a wonderful baseball scene (filmed on location at Little Rock) in which the double standards of Dennis Lipscomb's fidgety white captain are exposed with neat irony; he'll cheer his successful black team all the way home in the name of sport. His gradual, forced liberalisation provides the film with an important comic element. A Soldier's Story wears its heart on its sleeve without being superficial in any way. It's a compelling tale, well told and often highly entertaining, in which nobody gets off lightly, least of all the good guy. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation helps give an epic feel to what could, in other hands, have been a claustrophobic production. The picture quality is fine. But the monaural sound track is often rather muffled, leaving you straining to catch some of the dialogue. This is also a shame because the blues music--an inspired job by Herbie Hancock, assisted by Patti Labelle singing her lungs out as bar owner Big Mary--is an important element of the film's underlying theme and deserves to be better heard. The extras are valuable. Norman Jewison's commentary is detailed and sensitive. As he says, the film deals with "ideas in racism never seen on screen before", and he acknowledges the strength of his actors in getting those ideas across. "March to Freedom" is an excellent short documentary which features the moving testimonies of black servicemen on the insufferable prejudices they encountered while attempting to defend their country during the Second World War; A Soldier's Story is thus put sharply into context. --Piers Ford
Catharine (Theresa Russell) is a sultry beauty who meticulously sets her traps. Alex (Debra Winger) is a federal sleuth who just as meticulously uncovers what no one else suspects - that this femme fatale tricks wealthy men into marrying her then kills them to inherit their fortunes. Soon Alex's obsession with the mysterious Catharine draws her deeper and deeper into danger...
At home hardened police detective Aidan Breslin has grown increasingly distant from his two young sons Alex and Sean since the death of his wife. At work he finds himself thrust into an investigation of perverse serial killings rooted in the Biblical prophecy of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: The White Horsemen a master of deception and the unexpected leader hell- bent on conquest; The Red Horsemen a sharp-witted warrior intent on turning man against man with an innocence that hides a burning rage within; The Black Horsemen a manipulative and dark tyrant unbalanced but always one step ahead; and The Pale Horsemen an executioner with disarming strength determined to spread death through surgical precision. As Breslin grapples with each new revelation in the case he slowly discovers a shocking connection between himself and the four suspects.
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy