Working as a janitor for a small town university might seem like a dead end job to some but Indiana Jones has nothing on Ernest at least in his fantasies. Ernest is about the only person around who believes the out to lunch theory of college history professor Dr. Abner Melan that the real crown jewels of England are actually hidden in a giant cannon called 'Goliath'. Why even the wishy washy professor himself doesn't quite believe it until Ernest hijacks his henpecked friend and
The first and only film shot entirely in subtitled Latin, Sebastiane is Derek Jarman's first work as a director (though he shared the job with the less well-known Paul Humfress) and is a strange combination of gay nudie movie, pocket-sized Ancient Roman epic and meditation upon the image of Saint Sebastian. It opens with the Lindsay Kemp dance troupe romping around with huge fake phalluses to represent the Ken Russell-style decadence of the court of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 303, then decamps to Tuscany as Diocletian's favourite guard Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio) is demoted to ordinary soldier and dispatched to a backwater barracks because the Emperor (Robert Medley) suspects him of being a covert Christian. The bulk of the film consists of athletic youths in minimal thongs romping around the countryside, soaking themselves down between bouts of manly horseplay or sylvan frolic. It all comes to a bad end as the lecherous but guilt-ridden commanding officer Severus (Barney James) fails to cop off with Sebastian and instead visits floggings and tortures upon his naked torso, finally ordering his men to riddle the future saint with arrows, thus securing him a place in cultural history. The public schoolboy cleverness of scripting dialogue in Latin--a popular soldier's insult is represented by the Greek "Oedipus"--works surprisingly well, with the cast reeling off profane Roman dialogue as if it were passionate Italian declarations rather than marbled classical sentences. The film suffers from the not-uncommon failing that the best-looking actor is given the largest role but delivers the weakest performance: Treviglio's Sebastian is a handsome cipher, far less interesting than the rest of the troubled, bullying, awkward or horny soldiers in the platoon. Peter Hinwood, famous for the title role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, can be glimpsed in the palace orgy. The countryside looks as good as the cast, and Brian Eno delivers an evocative, ambient-style score. --Kim Newman
Jim and Hilda Bloggs are the typical retired couple in rural England. They drink endless cups of tea and have an unwavering faith in the wisdom of their government. They understand that a Third World War is imminent between the US and the Soviets. However they fail to grasp the concept that war will be fought by nuclear means and what consequences this will have. With the help of government issued pamphlets Jim builds a shelter to protect the couple and although they survive a n
In the spirit of James Garner's other famous small-screen character, Bret Maverick, Rockford is the kind of guy who'd rather avoid the fight and go fishing instead.
In a universe as vast as it is mysterious a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan. Hal is a gifted and cocky test pilot but the Green Lanterns have little respect for humans who have never harnessed the infinite powers of the ring before. But Hal is clearly the missing piece to the puzzle and along with his determination and willpower he has one thing no member of the Corps has ever had: humanity. With the encouragement of fellow pilot and childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) if Hal can quickly master his new powers and find the courage to overcome his fears he may prove to be not only the key to defeating Parallax… he will become the greatest Green Lantern of all.
The stunning BBC production of Charlotte Bronte's inspiring story is available for the first time on DVD. Jane Eyre (Zelah Clarke) is a mistreated orphan who learns to survive by relying on her independence and intelligence. Her first job in the outside world is governess to the ward of Mr. Rochester (Timothy Dalton) a man of many secrets and mercurial moods. The tentative trust between them slowly develops into romance but their hopes for happiness will soon be jeopardized by a te
Directed by Charles Crichton, who would much later direct John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda (1988), 1951's The Lavender Hill Mob is the most ruefully thrilling of the Ealing Comedies. Alec Guinness plays a bowler-hatted escort of bullion to the refineries. His seeming timidity, weak 'r's and punctiliousness mask a typically Guinness-like patient cunning. "I was aware I was widiculed but that was pwecisely the effect I was stwiving to achieve". He's actually plotting a heist. With more conventionally cockney villains Sid James and Alfie Bass in tow, as well as the respectable but ruined Stanley Holloway, Guinness' perfect criminal plan works in exquisite detail, then unravels just as exquisitely, culminating in a nail-biting police car chase in which you can't help rooting for the villains. The Lavender Hill Mob depicts a London still up to its knees in rubble from World War II, a world of new hope but continued austerity, a budding new order in which everything seems up for grabs; as such it could be regarded as a lighter hearted cinematic cousin to Carol Reed's 1949 masterpiece The Third Man. The Lavender Hill Mob also sees the first, fleeting on-screen appearance of Audrey Hepburn in the opening sequence. --David Stubbs
Based on the true story two homicide detectives (Travolta and Gandolfini) track Martha Beck and Raymond Martinez Fernandez a murderous pair known as the ""Lonely Hearts Killers"" who lure their victims through the personals...
Heavenly bells are ringing jubilant choirs are singing and Christmas joy is blanketing the world like freshly fallen snow. But the Yuletide spirit has yet to warm Bishop Henry Brougham's Victorian home. Struggling to raise funds for a new cathedral the preoccupied young clergyman has neglected his loving wife Julia and now only divine intervention can save their marriage! But the powerful and handsome angel sent from above has a mind of his own... and teaching mortal Henry an immor
Streets Of Laredo is the third title in the Lonesome Dove Saga. An exhilarating tale of legend and heroism continues the epic of the waning years of the Texas Rangers. Captain Woodrow Call is long in the tooth but still a legendary hunter. He is hired to track down a young Mexican train robber and killer Joey Garza. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker a witless deputy and one of the last remaining members of the Hat Creek outfit Pea-Eye Parker. Their long chase leads the
The Man from Laramie is the last of five remarkable Westerns Anthony Mann made with James Stewart (starting with Winchester '73 and peaking with The Naked Spur). Only John Ford excelled Mann as a purveyor of eye-filling Western imagery, and Mann's best films are second to no one's when it comes to the fusion of dynamic action, rugged landscapes and fierce psychological intensity. This collaboration marked virtually a whole new career for Stewart, whose characters are all haunted by the past and driven by obsession--here, to find whoever set his cavalry-officer brother in the path of warlike Indians. The Man from Laramie aspires to an epic grandeur beyond its predecessors. It's the only one in CinemaScope, and Stewart's personal quest is subsumed in a larger drama--nothing less than a sagebrush version of King Lear, with a range baron on the verge of blindness (Donald Crisp), his weak and therefore vicious son (Alex Nicol) and another, apparently more solid "son", his Edmund-like foreman (Arthur Kennedy). There are a few too many subsidiary characters, and the reach for thematic complexity occasionally diminishes the impact. But no one will ever forget the scene on the salt flats between Nicol and Stewart--climaxing in the single most shocking act of violence in 50s cinema--or the final, mountain-top confrontation. For decades, the film has been seen only in washed-out, pan-and-scan videos, with the characters playing visual hopscotch from one panel of the original composition to another. It's great to have this glorious DVD--razor-sharp, fully saturated (or as saturated as 50s Eastmancolor could be) and breathtaking in its CinemaScope sweep. --Richard T Jameson, Amazon.com
Killer secrets are kept, broken and dramatically revealed in the seventh sensational season of Psych. It's business as unusual for psychic crime fighter Shawn Spencer (James Roday) and best pal Burton Gus Guster (Dulé Hill) as they track down Bigfoot, go undercover as wacky radio DJs, and solve the ultimate murder mystery. And, Gus finally gets the girl. Catch every episode back-to-back and uninterrupted of the laugh-out-loud whodunit series that features stellar guest stars including Garrett Morris (2 Broke Girls), Lesley Ann Warren (In Plain Sight), Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), and Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future). Bonus Features: Deleted Scenes 100 Clues Exclusive Alternate Ending Psychouts Gag Reel Podcasts
Based on Neil Simon's own play, 1967's Barefoot in the Park is a perennially joyous film starring carefree Jane Fonda and staid lawyer Robert Redford as young newlyweds setting up home in Greenwich Village. Although the opening credits are fragrantly idyllic (aided by Neal Hefti's soundtrack, you can almost smell the blossom in Central Park), the film doesn't idealise apartment living in New York, à la Friends, far from it: Fonda and Redford's apartment is up several flights of stairs; there's a hole in the skylight and the bedroom is the size of a cupboard. All of this puts some strain on the marriage. When Fonda introduces fellow free spirit and ageing, behind-on-the-rent Lothario (Charles Boyer) to her somewhat inhibited mother (Mildred Natwick), the hapless Redford in particular is forced to come to terms with his own inhibitions. Although the second half of the film moves at a less cracking pace than the first, Barefoot in the Park is as exhilarating as a romantic weekend city break. Directo r Gene Saks, scriptwriter Neil Simon and composer Hefti would regroup in 1968 to make the similarly wonderful The Odd Couple. On the DVD: With the aid of filtering, the DVD recaptures the almost unreal colour quality common to films of this period, while the sound is faithful to the nuances of Hefti's soundtrack. The special features are miserly--subtitles, a choice of languages and the original trailer, though this at least conveys the engaging naiveté of the period--("The rarest, unsquarest, happiest motion picture in many a year!"). --David Stubbs
The seventh and final series 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 counsellor 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) where 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 quite 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/super villain 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
Party animal Tommy Callahan is definitely a few cans short of a six pack. But after seven years Tommy's finally earned his diploma - and a cushy job at Callahan Auto Parts. Returning home Tommy gets some more great news: his dad is marrying a real '10' and Tommy will get the stepbrother he always wanted. But as fast as you can say 'Who killed the keg?' the family business starts tanking. Now Tommy's got to hit the road with his dad's right-hand man a smug number-cruncher. And what
Southern Comfort is more than merely Deliverance in the Louisiana Bayou. Walter Hill's taut little tale of weekend warrior National Guardsman on swamp exercises reverberates with echoes of Vietnam. Powers Booth brings a hard pragmatism to the "new guy" in the unit, a Texas transplant less than thrilled with his new unit. "They're just Louisiana versions of the same rednecks I served with in El Paso", he tells level-headed Keith Carradine. The barely functional unit of city boys and macho rednecks invade the environs of the local Cajun trappers and poachers, "borrowing" the locals' boats and sending bursts of blank rounds over their heads in a show of contempt. Before they know it the dysfunctional strangers in a strange land are on the losing end of guerrilla war. The swamp rats kill their commanding officer (Peter Coyote) and terrorise the bickering bunch as they flee blindly through the jungle without a map, a compass, or a leader to speak of. Hill directs with a clean simplicity, creating tension as much from the primal landscape and the Cajuns' unsettling reign of terror as from the dynamics of a platoon of battle virgins tearing itself apart from rage and fear. Ry Cooder's eerie and haunting score and the primal, claustrophobic landscape only intensifies the paranoia as the city boys splinter with infighting (sparked by a bullying Fred Ward), blunder through booby traps and ambushes, and finally turn just as savage as their pursuers in their drive to survive. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
The 18th century, with its frills and bawds, was ideal territory for the Carry On team: Carry On Dick is one of the few of the series where one notices the quality of the art direction in intervals between terrible old Talbot Rothwell jokes and the creaking of standard farce moments. Captain Fancy (Kenneth Williams) is sent to the remote village of Upper Denture to arrest Big Dick Turpin (Sid James) and makes the mistake of confiding in the local Rector, the Reverend Flasher (who is Big Dick's secret alter ego). Dick has troubles of his own: his liaison with his housemaid and henchperson Harriet (Barbara Windsor) is perpetually interrupted by his amorous housekeeper (Hattie Jacques). Meanwhile, Joan Sims struts around the plot as the proprietor of a touring show of scantily clad young women. This is not one of the best of the series--a certain mean-spiritedness creeps in to the humour as does the self-conscious awareness that 1974 was a date a little late for some of the more sexist jokes--but any film with Kenneth Williams discussing satin coats with his tailor has something going for it. --Roz Kaveney
Neurotic, self-obsessed Robert Cole (Albert Brooks) is a successful film editor who splits up with his on-off girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold), only to try and win her back when he finds he can't live without her. Considered by many to be one of America's greatest comic talents, and sought out by filmmakers including Martin Scorsese, Judd Apatow, Steven Soderbergh and Nicolas Winding Refn, actor-writer-director Brooks created what is perhaps his most caustic and excruciatingly honest film in Modern Romance. High Definition remaster Original mono audio Audio commentary with critic and film historian Nick Pinkerton (2018) Movie Love with Eric Saarinen (2018, 15 mins): the celebrated cinematographer and director discusses his work with Albert Brooks Theatrical trailer Image gallery: publicity stills and promotional material New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
Separated from their homes children and lovers the female inmates of HMP Larkhalls continue to struggle with the harsh reality of life in this hidden world. Bad Girls Series 3 doesn't shy away from the cruelties and tense relationships inside the prison but also captures the warmth and humour the women need to survive the system. This DVD release features all 16 episodes across 5 discs.
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