Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks Season Four: Just three weeks after losing out on an Oscar for the song "Blame Canada", the show's creators aired their disgust at Phil Collins (who won for Tarzan) in the fantastic episode "Timmy! 2000". Not only did it prove how fast they can put a show together, it also reassured viewers that none of their comedic spark had been lost. More importantly we were introduced to the super-sweet wheelchair-bound child with learning difficulties. Timmy truly boosted the show's humour but also instilled some pathos to the gang's growing adventures (such as his poignant role in "Thanksgiving Special"). Proving the intention to take things in a new direction was the long-awaited move up to the "Fourth Grade". With a souped-up theme tune in an explosive new title sequence, the start of Kyle's adopted Canadian brother Ike in Kindergarten (cue super-cute baby voiceovers in a hilarious comment on the US Election farce in "Trapper Keeper") and lots more CGI inserts, this season really looks different from the others. The best two experiments were having Malcolm McDowell as "A British Person" narrating to camera for a new take on "Great Expectations" and linking all the way back to the video postcard that started it all--The Spirit of Christmas--in the downbeat finale "A Very Crappy Christmas". --Paul Tonks
Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks Series One: The animation may be old-style in the pilot show "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" but audiences hadn't seen anything like these 20 minutes of bleeped expletives, alien abduction and rear-end insertions before. It set the style most episodes would follow, with the children turning to the school Chef (voiced by Isaac Hayes) for help only to get a dirty song instead, a regular death for poor white trash Kenny and a moral lesson being learned at the end. An overnight success, the show drew in surprising cameo voiceovers: George Clooney provides dog growls for Sparky in "Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride", "The Chick from Species" (Natasha Henstridge) is Ms Ellen in "Tom's Rhinoplasty" and The Cure's Robert Smith (Trey and Matt being big fans of the band) is himself in the Godzilla spoof "Mecha-Streisand", in which a hate campaign against Barbra Streisand was begun. Other series highlights are Chef reliving Michael Jackson's Thriller in the first Halloween special "Pink Eye", the beginnings of a TV legend in "Mr Hankey, the Christmas Poo", and the cliff-hanger finale of "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut". --Paul Tonks
Jo Brand Barely Live is an absolutely straightforward record of a stand-up gig, with no frills at all, which is all you need from a comic such as Jo Brand. Here we get a coherent view of life, vigorously expressed: no wild flights of comic invention, but lots of sardonic bitching about men, feminism, weight problems and an absolute refusal to pretend to be nice or girly or polite. This London gig includes Brand's views on What Not to Wear, incontinence and improved types of Barbie doll. She talks about having small children and about what to think about when having sex with your husband (among other things, she recommends trying to list the cast of The Magnificent Seven). This is alternative comedy with everything exactly as advertised on the packet--it's also painfully real and funny. --Roz Kaveney
Not Without My Anus: With a gossip hungry public on their hands Comedy Central were set to transmit the episode that would provide the answer to the question on the tip of everyone's tongue: 'Just who is Cartman's father?' Instead of which on April Fool's Day they broadcast 'Not Without My Anus' – a very special episode featuring Terence and Philip!! Cartman's Mom Is Still A Dirty Slut: Just as Mephesto is about to reveal the identity of Eric Cartman's father the genetic engineer is shot by a mysterious gunman. While the boys wait for Mephesto to regain consciousness a blizzard hits South Park and the citizens are stranded for hours on end without food. Chicken Lover: A series of heinous crimes involving chickens leads to a startling revelation – Officer Barbrady can't read! When Barbrady resigns and anarchy ensues the boys pitch in to help. Cartman brings his own brand of law to the streets of South Park. Ike's Wee Wee: After a mishap in the classroom during his lesson on the evils of drugs and alcohol Mr. Mackey the school counselor is fired. In an act of desperation he turns to drugs and alcohol. Meanwhile it's time for Ike's Bris and when Kyle and the boys find out what it means to be circumcised they try to save Ike from that fate. Conjoined Fetus Lady: With Pip as their star player the South Park dodgeball team is off to the championships. Back in town the local citizens declare a 'Conjoined Twin Myslexia Week' in a misguided attempt to help the school nurse deal with a strange medical disorder.
Emotionally detached and socially isolated Kang-do's daily life is a succession of brutally violent incidents. As a feared and infamous debt collector on the streets of South Korea he is renowned for his horrifically sadistic methods and his merciless cold bloodied disregard for human life. That is until he meets a mysterious woman who claims to be the mother that abandoned him at birth. Initially sceptical he eventually lets her into his life only for her to suddenly vanish. On the hunt for the culprits he believes are responsible for her disappearance Kang-do is thrown into a dark and savage journey of fatal secrets that will take him to the edge of sanity. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Kim Ki-duk (3-Iron Samaritan Girl) Pieta is Asian cinema at its most raw intense and unforgettable.
After the shocking death of her parents Hilary (Jaclyn Smith) and her two younger sisters are torn apart and separated for over 30 years. Loving families take in the youngest girls but Hilary is left behind to endure a terrible childhood of cruel abuse and desperate poverty. Yet with iron determination Hilary achieves her dream of success... but erases all trace of her traumatic past. Then approaching death an old friend of their parents hires private detective John Chapman to trace the three women and unite them again. Hilary fights desperately to keep her painful memories buried and as Chapman probes beneath the hardened shell of her life he discovers an anguished and vulnerable woman.
Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for 2000 dollars after seeing the work of filmmakers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash, and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the cinema with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged kids still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree, and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that kids of all ages can't help but love it. Season Three We finally meet Craig, the kid who's always sat outside Counsellor (M'kay) Mackey's office this year. In "Tweek vs Craig" the series makes the most extended and surreal use of live-action scenes so far. More tinkerings with format reassure the show can still surprise such as a three-part segment mid-way which sees the events of one night from three different perspectives. Some inspired homages and spoofs make this the best year for pop-culture references: there's a great rip on the obsessive fad of Pokémon in "Chinpokomon"; Scooby Doo is fondly parodied in "Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery"; eggs are thrown at The Phantom Menace for the horror of Jar-Jar Binks in "Jakovasaurs". But to balance things out there's a far kinder wink to Star Wars (and Star Trek) that showcases the creators' fascination with Chewbacca and Endor in "Starvin' Marvin in Space!" which links back to season one and takes us to planet Marklar. The year's best star cameo is Jennifer Aniston as Miss Stevens the Choir Teacher in the love/hate of Green issues in "Rainforest Schmainforest". --Paul Tonks
Generally agreed upon to be Suzuki's finest work the film charts the progress of 'Number 3 Killer' Hanado an ice-cool Japanese hitman who get more than he bargained for when he agrees to make a hit for a beautiful girl. On the run and in danger from all sides Hanado must ultimately face the 'No.1 Killer'... A surreal and stunning fusion of '60's pop-aesthetic yakuza thriller raucous sex perverse desires staggering violence and delirious nightmare Branded To Kill is a unique thriller and a towering work of Art. Nikkatsu the studio that financed the film found the film was so intense and incomprehensible that Suzuki was immediately fired! Today it is regarded as his masterpiece.
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...
Supernanny (2 Discs)
A most extraordinary experience awaits those with a taste for the strange and the bizarrre in the small town of Black River Falls. Rocked by an inexplicable confluence of events in the late 1890s this sleepy Wisconsin town generated some of the most unlikely news reports and stories ever told. Previously harmless residents - including children - commit a series of gruesome violent murders. Sightings of ghosts and reports of haunting and possession run rife. Shocking dreamlike and s
Love has left the marriage of Zandalee (Erika Anderson) and Thierry (Judge Reinhold) so Zandalee finds ecstacy in the arms of Johnny (Nicolas Cage) her husband's boyhood friend. Once aroused her longings cannot be satisfied until her obsessive need for passion overwhelms the three in a dark triangle of desire and death...
Set in a Colorado mountain town that gets destroyed on a regular basis and is populated by the dumbest, most vulgar characters imaginable, South Park is an anarchic animated sitcom that owes more to the spirit of Monty Python than to its comparatively tame predecessor The Simpsons. The show's origins go back to a 1995 Christmas video "postcard" called The Spirit of Christmas that a Fox Studios executive had commissioned at the previous Sundance Film Festival for $2000 having seen the work of film-makers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (Cannibal: The Musical). The adventures of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny became an instant ratings and merchandising smash and the foul-mouthed eight-year-olds have expanded to the cinema screen (Bigger, Longer and Uncut), found their way to the MTV Movie Awards and allowed the show creators/(song) writers/voice-artists to pursue equally anarchic comedy at the box office with Baseketball and Orgazmo. Constantly pursued by a censorship outcry, the series has survived several copycat cartoon threats and even the death of its lead female vocal-artist during its third season. Perhaps the show's biggest controversy has always been that--despite a disclaimer before every episode--under-aged children still see it. But lured by a universe full of Cheesy Poofs and Cookie Dings, where no-one's afraid to badmouth school bus driver Miss Crabtree and where it's OK to vomit from being in love, it's no wonder that children of all ages can't help but love it. Seriously. --Paul Tonks Season Two: Parker and Stone intentionally annoyed audiences by holding back season one's cliff-hanger resolution ("Cartman's Mom is Still a Dirty Slut") where we learn the surprise truth of who Cartman's dad really is. Season two instead opens with a TV Movie-of-the-Week Special for cartoon-within-a-cartoon characters Terrance and Phillip in "Not Without My Anus". A clever sub-plot runs through the middle of the year with closet homosexual schoolteacher Mr Garrison losing his hand puppet Mr Hat and replacing him with Mr Twig. It comes to an end in the amazing "Chef Aid" with Mr Hat busting Garrison and Chef from jail to attend a concert where Elton John, Meat Loaf and Ozzy Osborne are playing (all voiced for real). We get to explore the dubious leisure activities of Jimbo and Ned on their cable access show "Huntin' and Killin'" during a ratings war with "Jesus and Pals" (Christ having chosen the town to live in--naturally) in the Jerry Springer spoof "The Mexican Staring Frog of southern Sri Lanka". The season is rounded off by visits from the Evil Eric Cartman (who's nice!) from a parallel universe in "Spooky Fish", the Booktastic Bus in "Chickenlover", the Underpants Gnomes and even Charles Manson. --Paul Tonks
From the makers of the award-winning Peep Show comes the second series of the British Comedy Award winning Star Stories a comedy series that gleefully presses it nose against the steamy window of fame. Recreating the bust-ups love-ins and fall-outs of major league celebrities Star Stories is a hilarious romp through the stories behind the tabloid splashes. It reveals the warts and all revelations of the personal dramas behind the tabloid representation of celebrity figures such as Take That Simon Cowell Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman and Britney Spears. In each episode a different celebrity is put under the microscope in a sacrilegious biopic of their lives to date. But these are the stories our stars would never want anyone to see.
A young Asian girl gets caught up in a Romeo and juliet style romance as she falls in love with a west-country lad. While disapproving families on both sides make life difficult the East meets the East End as Bollywood comes to London.
Torn is a dramatic saga of parental love family and belonging - inspired by a true story. Two families' lives are turned upside down when a mother recognises her daughter who was snatched from a beach 12 years before and had generally been assumed drowned. But reuniting a family causes destruction and heartache wherein nobody knows where they really belong and ultimately it takes the death of a special kind of mother to bring resolution
We're not talking about monsters of the deep here. It's In the Water is set in the imaginary town of Azalea Springs, Texas, where the community is blighted by wealth and smugness and where the greatest crime is not to fit in--and that includes being gay. When the outrageous and fearless Spencer (John Hallum, camping it up) playfully lets on that there's something in the water supply that encourages homosexuality, the temperature of local gossip rises as fast as the sales of bottled water. Kelli Herd, in her directorial debut, aims to cast scorn on such phobic behaviour by sending up the straight guys and idealising the gays. Thus we have our central character, Alex (Keri Jo Chapman), whose life consists of lunches and charitable works, and who is married to Robert, a cold Action Man lookalike (and about as plastic in his acting skills). It's enough of a scandal when she gets enthusiastic about working in the local AIDS hospice, but when she has a lesbian fling with an old school friend, Grace (Teresa Garrett), who has returned to town, freshly divorced after discovering her true leanings, then even Alex's own mother--a complete nightmare of a woman--turns against her. The movie does have occasional witticisms, but it's too cliché-ridden and too sanitised (dying of AIDS was never this pretty) to do more than raise an occasional grim smile. Yes, there's a serious message underlying the film, but it would have needed more plot, stronger dialogue and less histrionic play-acting to give it true power. On the DVD: It's In the Water has only the most basic additional features: two trailers for similarly themed movies, but no subtitles or additional languages. The picture quality is bright and sharp, sparing us no detail in the Versace-inspired interiors and relentlessly garish mode of dress favoured by Azalea Springs inmates. --Harriet Smith
Be careful what you wish for... Wishing Stairs is the third part of the Ghost School trilogy which includes Whispering Corridors and Memento Mori. There's a legend which claims that if you count aloud 28 steps to the school dormitory a 29th stair appears and a spirit will grant you a wish. That can bring good fortune if you are honourable. Yet in this school full of rivalry and jealousy those moods are often viciou
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