Return of the Living Dead is a parody-cum-sequel spin-off from George Romero's superior Night of the Living Dead films. A corpse-containing canister gets breached and releases an oily, loose-limbed, brain-eating zombie tatterdemalion and a gas that revives anything dead in the vicinity, even a bisected dog preserved as a vet's teaching specimen and a case of pinned butterflies. The dim-bulb leading characters--earnest Clu Gulager, goofy James Karen and Thom Matthews--burn up a mess of surplus living body parts, but the rains wash the ashes into the earth of a nearby cemetery and a whole crowd of brain-eating zombies claw their way out to terrorise a group of teens who sport the kind of 1985 fashions, hairdos, slang preferences and musical tastes that will never feature in a TV nostalgia programme. There are plenty of in-jokes at the expense of the Living Dead films (learning that shooting 'em in the brain doesn't work, the appalled Matthews gasps, "You mean the movie lied?"), and director Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Dark Star and Alien, hurries things along through some gruesome action and terror-by-zombie bits until the surprisingly cynical anti-government conclusion. It's not as wittily outrageous as Re-Animator or Braindead, but it has an amiable, drive-in-cum-home video grunge about it. Frequently naked exploitation regular Linnea Quigley makes an impression as the punkette zombie who goes on the rampage wearing nothing but leg-warmers and body make-up. The frill-free DVD is full-screen (boo hiss!) except for the titles, offers only the trailer and inadequate cast and crew notes as extras, but it looks okay. --Kim Newman
A middle-class man turns to a life of crime in order to finance his niece's first year at Harvard University.
In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today still wanted by the government they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem if no one else can help and if you can find them maybe you can hire the A-Team. 1: The Taxi Cab Wars The small independent Lonestar cab company admits defeat and closes its doors when their cabs
Dawson's Creek is, first and foremost, one of the defining shows about teen angst and complicated teenage relationships. The first two seasons were the classic ones, as Dawson oscillates in his affections between beautiful Jen and his best friend Joey and manages to fall entirely between two stools. This is a show in which indecision and failure to commit is always going to lead to nothing good, however uncertain the prospects of commitment. Michelle Williams as Jen and Katie Holmes as Joey provide the show with its emotional centre of quirky intensity. James Van Der Beek as the essentially unreliable Dawson provides good looks and a hang-dog complexity of feeling to the mix, while Joshua Jackson as his sidekick Pacey provides both reliable comic relief and a sense of more depth to come in the show's later seasons. This "Best of Seasons 1 and 2" provides good examples of what the show does best. From Season 1, "The Scare" is a finely judged commentary on teen horror films--the show's creator Kevin Williamson was also responsible for the Scream franchise--and "Beauty Contest" is a finely judged social comedy about the show's high-toned resort community. Other strands in "Beauty Contest" lead in Season 2 to the brief Joey-Dawson relationship in "The Kiss" and to its aftermath in "His Leading Lady", where Dawson directs Rachael Lee Cook as Devon in a movie script based sufficiently closely on earlier episodes that she reprises Joey's actual lines. Dawson's Creek is essential teen soap, savvy enough in its post-modern edge to play well with self-parody and intertextuality.--Roz Kaveney
Opera in two acts from the Glyndebourne Festival Opera 1978. Sung in German.
Jack returns to Gallowshields from New York having lost his money in the Wall Street crash. Episodes include: 'Back To Dear Old Blighty' 'A Gift From Heaven' 'A Medal For The Argentine' and 'Flies And Spiders'.
Battling For Baby stars Suzanne Pleshette and Debbie Reynolds in the humourous and poignant story of two childhood friends who are fierce rivals. A nursery turns into a battleground when they both become grandmother to the same baby. As children Marie and Helen were inseperable friends. Now as adults they are bitter rivals but must see each other because Marie's daughter Katherine and Helen's son Phillip fell in love and got married. When Katherine announces she's pregnant both mo
Having made the heartrending decision to break away from her one true love and father of her child ambitious and married politician Adam Warner Jennifer (Jaclyn Smith) sets about rebuilding her career and finding happiness again. Dangerous ghosts from her past come back to haunt her though in the shape of ruthless mobster James Moretti. His brother Michael had been obsessed with Jennifer and had died because of it. Now the vengeful James is out to blackmail both Jennifer and Adam over their illicit love - and ultimately wants Jennifer dead. But hell hath no fury like the 'Rage of Angels'... based on the Sidney Sheldon novel.
The aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey investigates the death of a young copywriter at a top advertising agency. Can Lord Peter solve the crime before more deaths occur?
A murder writer gains a valuable insight into his craft by practising for real!
John Lennon: Rare And Unseen
The FlawDirected by Terence Fisher of Hammer fame this 1955 British production stars John Bentley Donald Houston and Rona Anderson. In this crime drama a sneaky race-car driver Paul Oliveri (John Bentley) plans to murder his wife for the insurance money. Her attorney who is in love with her discovers the plan - a brutal fight culminates in tragedy for one of the two combatants. Great old motor racing sequences and filmed in Shoreham East Sussex. Witness in the DarkThis second feature stars Patrica Dainton as a blind girl who witnesses the thief turned murderer of her upstairs friend and neighbour. Also stars Conrad Phillips and Nigel Green. Directed by Wolf Rilla just before he directed Village of the Damned.
It's Christmas time in 1930's Pittsburgh and motherless 12 year old Emma O'Conner has been sent to her 'Aunt Delores' in Doverville. On arrival Emma finds herself unwelcomed by Delores and caught in the middle of a war over dogs. On one side is Mayor Nobel Doyle and the Town Council who are determined to maintain the 'No Dogs Allowed' law of Doverville. On the other side is Cathy Stevens 'The Dog Lady' who has been taking in people's dogs from all over the country as they can no
Mutant X takes the useful SF trope of the mutant minority persecuted by the state and adds potentially interesting spins on which it rarely delivers. The charismatic villain Mason Eckhart of the Genetic Security Agency (Tom McCamus) professes an ideology of service and sacrifice for which many mutants fall, unaware of his genocidal and exploitative real intentions--though his habit of dumping failed minions into glass tubes for subsequent vivisection might give them a clue. A quest for redemption underlies the apparent smugness of Adam (Michael Shea), the good guys' mentor who used to work for the GSA's front, research company Genomex. The shiny, pretty central quartet themselves--fierce acrobatic Shalimar, reliable density-shifter Jesse, laddish electro-boy Brennan and sensible mind-twister Emma--alternately rescue new mutants from Eckhart and neutralise those who are threats. After a couple of pilot episodes that pushed into OTT visual stylishness, the show has settled into mildly repetitive though watchable blandness: for the most part it avoids story arcs and a large cast of regulars in favour of plugging its characters into the stock plots of television SF, such as doubles, vengeance crusades and untrustworthy lovers. On the DVD: Mutant X Series 1, Volume 1 contains the following episodes: "The Shock of the New". Shopgirl Emma discovers her powers of persuasion have made her the target of murderous Mason Eckhart and his henchman Thorne. Rescued by Shalimar and Jesse, she refuses their offer of passage into the mutant underground and is attacked a second time. "I Scream the Body Electric". Captured while rescuing Emma, electricity-shooting Brennan is forcibly recruited into Eckhart's kidnap squads--can he be rescued or avoid corruption? "Russian Roulette". A gun that targets and destroys the DNA of mutants is being tested by Russian mercenaries. Mutant X needs it to cure Brennan and to stop Eckhart obtaining it. "Fool for Love". Shalimar falls for a GSA scientist whose cure for mutancy is more dangerous than either of them know. "Kiloherz". A fiery radical young mutant, Kiloherz, can travel in radio waves and inhabit electronic equipment. Mutant X need to save him from Eckhart and stop him doing too much damage. The DVDs also has trailers, Web links and interviews with Victoria Pratt (Shalimar) and producer Karen Wookey. --Roz Kaveney
A blonde actress is murdered across the road from a bar. An off duty cop has been getting drunk at the bar but becomes worried about his innocence when he is told he was seen leaving the establishment with the blonde but doesn't remember. As he investigates he interviews a columnist who was dating the actress a caricaturist who drew the victim the caricaturist's wife who works at the bar and the caricaturist's lover and slowly begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Titles Comprise: Hud: Paul Newman is Hud a man at odds with his father tradition and himself. Hud's only interests are fighting drinking hot-rodding his Cadillac and womanising. Melvyn Douglas is the father an old-line cattle rancher and Patricia Neal is the understanding and appealing housekeeper. Academy Awards went to Patricia Neal Melvyn Douglas and James Wong Howe's brilliant cinematography. Shadow Makers: Based on the true events surrounding the secret wartime project in New Mexico where the first atomic bombs were designed and built Shadow Makers is the story of brilliant scientist Robert Oppenheimer who supervised the work on the now infamous Manhattan Project. Directed by Oscar-nominated Roland Joffe the film focuses on the link between the progress of science at all costs deep moral ambiguities and the effects of the project on the individuals involved. Paul Newman plays the military general overseeing the Manhattan Project. His deeply cynical and uncompromising portrayal of a man determined to succeed no matter what is the catalyst for the dramatic tensions in the film. Shadow Makers delicately captures the internal struggles of the individual's experience set-against the dominance of a greater power that manipulates them to its needs and that is eternally present like a sinister shadow in the background of their lives. John Cusack and Laura Dern are excellent in supporting roles and play out the devastating affects of atomic warfare in a sensitive and provoking manner. The authenticity and attention to detail consolidate a gripping and thoughtful view on the true events surrounding the invention of the atom bomb. Twilight Some people can buy their way out of anything. Except the past. Paul Newman plays Harry Ross a burned-out private eye who's plunged into a murder mystery tied to a long-unsolved case of Hollywood dreams schemes and cover-ups. Susan Sarandon and Gene Hackman are among the locals who inhabit a Tinseltown world of privilege and sleaze sexuality and desperation trust and double-cross.
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