Picking up where Queer as Folk left off, QAF2: Same Men, New Tricks exists primarily to wrap up the series. Consisting of two one-hour episodes, it occasionally moves fast--but it won't leave anyone who watched the first series behind. Stuart is still, we're constantly reminded, "a twat", and it's around him that this sequel revolves. Trying to come to term with his place in the world, he finds young Nathan a formidable protege, his family needing him less, and his friends... well, Stuart never was much of one for relationships. Vince, his one friend, has started to take charge of his own life, leaving Stuart to grow less and less connected to anyone else's definition of responsible behaviour. It's maddening, but it's also what makes the show so much fun to watch. Then comes the ending: keeping in mind that QAF2 was done solely to ensure that there would be no conceivable way to do any further series, the fantastical final 15 minutes is extremely effective, if a bit incongruous with the rest of the show. Camp and way, way, way over the top, it's an ending that the guys in the show would probably relish. --Randy Silver
The unexpected casting of Tony Curtis as the presumed Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, is only the first of the attractions of this hard-nosed suspense picture. Although the style of The Boston Strangler looks dated today, with its split-screen experiments and post-Bonnie and Clyde permissiveness, the film still has the clean, strong lines of a methodical policier. For the first hour, we don't focus on the Strangler, instead following the Beantown cops (led by Henry Fonda) as they track down leads; the best sequence is the near-accidental connection made between burglary suspect DeSalvo and the killings. Director Richard Fleischer had a forceful hand with true-crime material (Compulsion, 10 Rillington Place) and he takes an unblinking look into the then-taboo subject of sexual pathology. Curtis's physical transformation into a dumpy, dull-eyed brute is the best aspect of his performance; it's a role he lobbied hard for, but it did not lead to more challenging work. --Robert Horton
Scream 2 the classic sequel directed by Wes Craven now available for the first time on Blu-ray. The hip darkly comical sequel to self-aware Scream sees Sidney Prescott now in college once again finds herself the target of a bloodthirsty cloak-clad mask-wearing knife-wielding psychotic killer whose penchant for pop movie trivia runs deep. This time however the body count is higher and the deaths more outrageous--traits of a true sequel as noted by one unfortunate victim. A definite true-to-form teen slasher. All in DTS HD Master Audio Surround 5.1
The fifth season of Outlander sees a continuation of Claire and Jamie's fight to protect those they love, as they navigate the trials and tribulations of life in colonial America. Establishing a home in the New World is by no means an easy task, particularly in the wild backcountry of North Carolina and perhaps most significantly during a period of dramatic political upheaval. The Frasers strive to flourish within a society which, as Claire knows all too well, is unwittingly marching towards Revolution, as members of the elite ruling classes struggle to stifle an alarming undercurrent of unrest, trigged by the Regulator Movement, and to maintain order in the Province. Against this backdrop, which soon heralds the birth of the new American nation, Claire and Jamie have built a home together at Fraser's Ridge. Jamie must now defend this home established on land granted to him by the Crown despite the fact that this new mantle of responsibility sees him pitted against his godfather, Murtagh Fitzgibbons, a leader of the Regulator Rebellion. Jamie is forced to hide the true nature of his relationship with Murtagh from Governor Tryon, who has ordered Jamie to put an end to the unrest sweeping North Carolina. Claire, in turn, seeks to put her own skills and medical expertise to use in keeping her family together and safe from harm. Coupled with her knowledge of the future, she decides that she must be daring and have the courage to take risks, whatever the consequences may be Meanwhile, Brianna and Roger MacKenzie struggle to find their respective places in this world: striving to chase away the shadow cast over their lives by Stephen Bonnet, which continues to loom over them, as they raise their son in this brave new world. For the Frasers and their family, home is more than simply a site in which they live, it is the place in which they are laying the foundations for the rest of their lives.
Jeff Bridges actually corralled an Oscar nomination for his spirited, oddball performance in the genre-crime story Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, directed by first-timer Michael Cimino who (a short two films later) would bring down a studio with Heaven's Gate. Clint Eastwood plays a bank robber par excellence with a flair for explosives who is being hunted by his former partners, who think he has their loot from their last job. Bridges is his eager apprentice and sidekick, who helps him escape; when Eastwood finally makes peace with his hunters, Bridges convinces them to try a daring robbery--but things inevitably go awry. The relationship between Eastwood and Bridges is both funny and touching in this, one of Eastwood's better post-Dirty Harry efforts. --Marshall Fine
A confident hybrid of M*A*S*H, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and Dr. Strangelove, Three Kings is one of the most seriously funny war movies ever made. Improving the premise of Kelly's Heroes with scathing intelligence, it explores the odd connection between war and consumerism in the age of Humvees and cellular phones. Writer-director David O. Russell's third film (after Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster) is a no-holds-barred portrait of personal conscience in the volatile arena of politics, played out by one of the most gifted filmmakers to emerge in the 1990s. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze (director of Being John Malkovich) play a quartet of US soldiers who, disillusioned by Operation Desert Storm, decide to steal $23 million in gold hijacked from Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's army. Getting the bullion out of an Iraqi stronghold is easy; keeping it is a potentially lethal proposition. By the end of their mercenary mission, the Americans can no longer ignore war-time atrocities, and conscience demands their aid to Kuwaiti rebels abandoned by President George Bush's fickle war-time policy. This is serious stuff indeed, but Russell infuses Three Kings with a keen sense of the absurd, and the entire film is an exercise in breathtaking visual ingenuity. Despite a conventional ending that's mildly disappointing for such a brashly original film, Three Kings conveys the brutal madness of war while making you laugh out loud at the insanity. --Jeff Shannon
Channel 4's critically-acclaimed drama Skins enters its fifth series following the angst-ridden lives of its teenage characters as they grapple with adolescence. This series introduces the third generation of sixth formers; a once again eclectic mix of characters. Dakota Blue Richards (The Golden Compass) stars as Franky who automatically sets herself up as an outsider when she joins the school three weeks late. As Mini Liv and Grace do their best to both help and hinder her settling in period we also meet the new boys Alo Rich Nick and Matty. Expect plenty more bitching backstabbing and general angst-ridden behaviour in this the complete fifth series.
Odd teaming of man-of-integrity A-list studio director Sidney Lumet (Twelve Angry Men, Serpico, The Verdict) with muckraking, lively independent screenwriter Larry Cohen (It's Alive, God Told Me To, Q: The Winged Serpent), the court-room drama Guilty As Sin relies rather heavily on the plot of Jagged Edge. Jack Warden reprises Robert Loggia's grumpy but decent private-eye role exactly, while ice-maiden lawyer Rebecca De Mornay is ensnared in a web of duplicity and violence by her client (Don Johnson), accused of murdering his wife. It hasn't got the gravitas of Lumet's best or the maniacal energy of top-rate Cohen film, but as a no-brain thriller it offers a couple of edgy, interesting star performances, with Johnson in particular cutting loose from his image with a display of razor-edged smiling charm as the killer gigolo. --Kim Newman
Stephen King and George A. Romero present... The Creep is your guide to three new tales of terror from the creepiest comic book of them all! In Old Chief Wood'nhead kindly shop-keepers are slaughtered by hoodlums and unleash a most unexpected avenger. Four teens out for fun find themselves on a lake-monster's menu in The Raft. And in The Hitcher a cheating wife is in for the ride of her life when she runs down a hitcher who won't stay dead. Gore FX legend Tom Savini and Stephen King himself co-star in this scream of a sequel co-wriiten by King and George A. Romero that's bigger better and wilder than ever!
TO AVOID FAINTING KEEP REPEATING IT'S ONLY A MOVIE.... ONLY A MOVIE.... ONLY A MOVIE..... ONLY A MOVIE! In a small town in the north of England an experimental pest-control device is being used with horrific consequences. Edna (Cristina Galbo) and George (Ray Lovelock) are unlikey travelling companions - they met en-route when she backed her car into his motorbike and subsequently offered him a lift to his destination. Stopping over near Manchester Galbo is attacked by a man that the locals say has been dead for days. Edna's sister Katie (Jeannine Mestre) is a prostitute addicted to heroin and when her husband is brutally murdered Katie is the chief suspect according to bitter local inspector (Arthur Kennedy). But Edna and George soon realise that inhabitants are being murdered as meals for the re-animated corpses of the morgue: the new pesticides used in the area are bringing the dead back to life and for sustenance they need human flesh. The Living Dead is widely recognised by horror fans as one of the best zombie movies ever made and the unlikely setting of pretty English countryside makes the flesh-tearing bone crunching zombies all the more shocking. The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue was made in 1974 by director Jorge Grau who gave an interview for the forthcoming DVD release by Anchor Bay Entertainment UK in which he talks about the characterisation special effects and the hostile reaction to the film by the British press . Also on the DVD will be several theatrical trailers (featuring many of the names that the film has been known by) behind-the scenes stills alternative beginnings to the film and hidden extras. The DVD comes with a 40 page collector's booklet about the film.
Celebrating 35 and 1/365th years, the hit outrageous comedy comes to 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever in this limited edition SteelBook. Leslie Nielsen reprises his POLICE SQUAD! series character granitejawed, rockbrained cop Frank Drebin as he bumbles across a mind control scheme to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. Priscilla Presley costars in a hysterical comedic role as Franks love interest in a blockbuster that could only come from the minds of Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker (AIRPLANE!). Youve read the packaging, now buy the movie!
Three astronauts return to Earth two months after a nuclear holocaust and confront a new and terrifying reality. Civilisation has given way to barbarism. One of their number is eaten alive by the disease crazy mutants. The battle for freedom and the world's future has begun...
""A Miracle of a Film"" - Steven Spielberg This remarkable film follows the struggles of T.E. Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole - My Favourite Year The Last Emperor) in uniting the hostile Arab factions during the First World War and leading them to victory over the ruling Turkish Empire. The film was released originally in 1962 to huge critical acclaim winning 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for David Lean.
The Smoking Room continues the rich vein of comedy that's being shown on BBC3 - fast becoming the channel for British comedy. In the world of work there is only one place where seniority counts for nothing where shop-talk is banned and where the last bastions against fresh air and desk-based massage gather regularly to discuss the minutiae of their lives: the smoking room. Here in this protected environment crossword addict Barry; lazy chav lothario Clint; self-obsessed cigarette-pinching Annie; and lovelorn skiver Robin; nurse that last ciggie and are always ready to ask ""have you got time for another?"" Features the complete first and second series. Episode Listing - Series 1: 1. Do De Dum De Da 2. R.I.P. 3. Pantball 4. Light My Fire 5. Chocolate Box 6. Feeding Time 7. Only Temporary 8. Happy Birthday 9. Christmas Special Series 2: 1. Buzz 2. No Place Like Home 3. 1987 4. Smashed 5. Pity The Fool 6. Quitters 7. Last Night A Graphic Designer Saved My Life 8. Significant Others
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
his Is Jinsy Series 2 takes you back to the extraordinary island of knitwear, folksong and hi-tech surveillance for a series of eight colourful new adventures. Join Arbiter Maven, his assistant, Sporall, repairwoman Soosan and legal advisor Trince as they attempt to control Jinsy s troublesome residents. From an invasion of ancient hair to a dangerous encounter with a tribe of wild accountants, from the mysterious scheming of arch-enemy The Speckled Pom-Pom to a quest for The Golden Woggle... the island is once again peopled with a host of British television s most popular stars as you ve never seen them before: Stephen Fry, Olivia Colman, Ben Miller, Sir Derek Jacobi, Rob Brydon, Dame Eileen Atkins, Greg Davies, Stephen Mangan, Jennifer Saunders, KT Tunstall, Phil Davis and Katy Brand.
In the hit CBS drama Ghost Whisperer Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) has chilling heart-stopping amusing and emotional encounters with ghosts and those they haunt. At the tense intersection of the Living and the Dead there is a mind-bending mystery that puts Melinda in lethal jeopardy - but also brings hope and miracles. Melinda's husband Jim (David Conrad) is now a practicing physician at Grandview's haunted hospital. With the spirit world growing stronger Melinda and Jim must find a way to balance their romance and the challenges of the churning spirit world. Melinda comes to understand that her unique gift is a responsibility that must be honoured to help souls in need - alive or dead - find perfect closure. Episodes Comprise: 1. Birthday Presence 2. See No Evil 3. Till Death Do Us Start 4. Do Over 5. Cause for Alarm 6. Head Over Heels 7. Devil's Bargain 8. Dead Listing 9. Lost in the Shadows 10. Excessive Forces 11. Dead Air 12. Blessings in Disguise 13. Living Nightmare 14. Dead to Me 15. Implosion 16. Old Sins Cast Long Shadows 17. On Thin Ice 18. Dead Eye 19. Lethal Combination 20. Blood Money 21. Dead Ringer 22. The Children's Parade
This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joffé, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script of The Killing Fields spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. The late Haing S. Ngor--a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the events depicted by Joffé--is outstanding, and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oscars also went to cinematographer Chris Menges and editor Jim Clark. --Tom Keogh
Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the creative troika behind Airplane!, scored another hit with this big-screen adaptation of their short-lived television show Police Squad!. Deadpan as ever, Leslie Nielsen revives his TV role of Lt Frank Drebin, the idiot with a detective's badge. The jokes come thick and fast, gathering a momentum that lasts until the final act. Ricardo Montalban is a perfect foil as a villain whose aquarium is invaded by Drebin during routine questioning, and George Kennedy is delightful in a self-parodying part as an earnest but obtuse lawman. There's a hilarious bit when Drebin--wearing a live police wire while going to the bathroom--can be overheard over the loudspeakers at a speech given by a flustered mayor (Nancy Marchand). And yes, that's OJ Simpson as a detective who ends up on the wrong side of numerous Drebin blunders. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
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
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy