MARTIN SHEEN (TVs The West Wing Apocalypse Now) puts in a great performance in this creepy chiller which also stars ROBERT LOGGIA (Independence Day Prizzis Honour Scarface) and a young JIMMY SMITS (Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones). Director JOHN SCHLESINGER (Marathon Man) provides plenty of shocks for true horror fans. After the bizarre death of his wife police psychiatrist Cal Jamison (SHEEN) moves to New York with his son. There he has to help in the investigatio
Action-packed Season Three develops major characters and plot lines brewing over the last couple of years. The Mayor, this season's major baddie, wants to become an invincible demon by slaughtering everyone at Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony but he's going to torture them all by giving his speech first. Bad-girl vampire-slayer Faith wants to get one over on Buffy and becomes even more rotten. Angel comes back from hell but isn't sure what to do about his girlfriend. Willow meets her evil gay vampire duplicate from another dimension. Xander loses his virginity but still has to contemplate his essential uselessness. Cordelia gets less whiny and has to work in a dress-shop when her father becomes bankrupt. Giles wears tweed and drinks tea, though it is revealed that he used to be a warlock and in a punk band. Besides the soap opera, there are monsters, curses and vampires (inevitably). --Kim Newman On the DVD: The DVDs are presented in a standard television 4:3 picture ratio and in a clear Dolby sound that does full justice both to the sparkling dialogue and to the always impressive indie-rock and orchestral scores. Special features include an overview of Season Three by its creator Joss Whedon, and by writers Marti Noxon, David Fury, Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson and documentaries on the weapons, clothes special effects of the show and the speech/verbal tone which makes it what it is-"Buffyspeak". The episodes "Helpless", "Bad Girls", "Consequences" and "Earshot" have commentaries by, Fury, Petrie, director James Gershman and Espenson, in which we find out some fascinating details about the way the scripts mutate and about the particular illuminations added to scripts by actors' performances. After complaints about the Season 2 DVD packaging, the disc envelopes include a protective coating. --Roz Kaveney
An inevitable idea: a working man (Michael Keaton) who can't meet all his professional and family responsibilities has himself cloned. It works so well having one copy of himself to take charge of matters at the office that he makes another copy who takes care of the home front. Pretty soon, different aspects of Keaton's personality are emphasised in the different clones: the labourer becomes a macho creep and the domestic god becomes rather feminine. A third clone, struck from the duplicates instead of the original, becomes like a photocopy of a photocopy: inferior. Multiplicity is a timely comedy should be better than it is, but special-effects requirements are so labour-intensive that most scenes feel stiff and leaden. Keaton is good in all four parts, and in certain gee-whiz effects scenes, where he even high-fives himself, he pulls off a minor miracle or two. (Of course, a kid did the same thing in Disney's 1998 remake of The Parent Trap.) --Tom Keogh
The seventh and final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer begins with a mystery: someone is murdering teenage girls all over the world and something is trying hard to drive Spike mad. Buffy is considerably more cheerful in these episodes than we have seen her during the previous year as she trains Dawn and gets a job as student counselor at the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High. Willow is recovering from the magical addiction which almost led her to destroy the world, but all is not yet well with her, or with Anya, who has returned to being a Vengeance demon in "Same Time, Same Place" and "Selfless," and both women are haunted by their decisions. Haunting of a different kind comes in the excellent "Conversations with Dead People" (one of the show's most terrifying episodes ever), in which a mysterious song is making Spike kill again in spite of his soul and his chip. Giles turns up in "Bring on the Night" and Buffy has to fight one of the deadliest vampires of her career in "Showtime". In "Potential" Dawn faces a fundamental reassessment of her purpose in life. Buffy was always a show about female empowerment, but it was also a show about how ordinary people can decide to make a difference alongside people who are special. And it was also a show about people making up for past errors and crimes. So, for example, we have the excellent episodes "Storyteller", in which the former geek/supervillain Andrew sorts out his redemption while making a video diary about life with Buffy; and "Lies My Parents Told Me," in which we find out why a particular folk song sends Spike crazy. Redemption abounds as Faith returns to Sunnydale and the friends she once betrayed, and Willow finds herself turning into the man she flayed. Above all, this was always Buffy's show: Sarah Michelle Gellar does extraordinary work here both as Buffy and as her ultimate shadow, the First Evil, who takes her face to mock her. This is a fine ending to one of television's most remarkable shows. --Roz Kaveney
An American judge in Germany must decide if the hijacking of an East German plane into West Berlin was justified.
Doc
A gang of unique outcasts and misfits live in a downtown Los Angeles fleapit, known locally as the
Translating Rowan Atkinson's Mr Bean character from British television to the big screen takes a bit of a toll, but there are some hilarious sequences in this popular comedy. The eponymous Bean, a boy-man twit with a knack for getting into difficult binds (and then making them worse and worse and worse), is a London museum guard who is sent to Los Angeles in the company of the famous painting Whistler's Mother. He's mistaken as an art expert by the well-meaning curator (Peter MacNicol) of an LA museum, but Bean's famously eccentric behaviour soon causes the poor guy to almost lose his family and job. The insularity of Bean's TV world is sacrificed in this film, and that change diminishes some of the character's appeal. But Atkinson is a man naturally full of comedy, and he doesn't let his fans down. --Tom Keogh
The only thing more dangerous than the line being crossed is the cop who will cross it... A gripping drama set in the shadowy world of undercover police work 'Training Day' tells the story of a veteran L.A.P.D. narcotics officer (Denzel Washington in an Oscar-winning role) who guides an idealistic rookie (Ethan Hawke) through his first day on the brutal inner-city beat.
As a number of leading figures on the international fashio scene assemble for a major show their personal and professional crises come to a head. Paul Sorvino plays Lorenzo manchini a famous designer who has learned that he only has a short time to live. As he tries to make peace with his wife and long time partner (Peter Gallagher) he also tries to mend his failing relationship with his son. Estelle Warren plays a celebrated young model who has to make the choice between earning a living and keeping her self respect. Cutting-edge designer Roberta (Rita Wilson) is scrambling to pull together her latest collection as her employees start to leave her fashion house one by one. Her best friend and business partner Camille looks likely to be the next to leave the nest as she becomes involved with Jamie (Jeff Golblum) who works for a rival designer. And an editor of a fashion magazine (Joanne Baron) has to confront her past when her daughter Hayley (Michelle Williams) whom she has not seen in twelve years turns up at her office. All the characters have one thing in common- they are all trapped in the machinery that makes the fashion business move and breathe where the clothes are unsellable nevermind unwearable!
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