The two-part conclusion to The Office bids farewell to David Brent and his long-suffering co-workers in a surprisingly poignant not to say dignified manner. Supposedly accompanied by the fly-on-the-wall documentary crew three years after his highly undignified exit from Slough-based paper merchants Wernham Hogg, the first part reveals Brent as a travelling salesman by day and D-list "celebrity" by night, enduring humiliating club appearances organised by his clueless manager. But Brent can't keep away from his old stamping-ground in Slough, especially with the imminent prospect of the annual Christmas party. As much to spite suave rival Neil as anything else, Brent is on an agonisingly painful hunt for a date to bring along. Back at Wernham Hogg, lovelorn Tim has to endure not only the officious behaviour of Gareth, now his manager, but also a cheerless existence bereft of Dawn, who is living in Florida with boorish fiancé Lee. Matters are brought to a head for all concerned--including Lee and Dawn, flown over specially for the occasion--when they finally gather in the office for the party. As ever the script is full of priceless one-liners (witness big Keith's chat-up spiel, as he promises "at least one orgasm" to any woman), and the show is peppered with those direct appeals to camera (Tim's weary "I don't believe he just said that" look, Brent's desperate self-justificatory "Eh?"), as well as achingly effective silences that simultaneously enhance the fly-on-the-wall conceit and heighten the comic effect. Without descending into the sentimental or the trite, somehow The Office closes for business on a genuinely heartwarming note. On the DVD: This single disc has good, if unexceptional, bonus features. There's a behind-the-scenes documentary in similar format to those on the previous releases, a commentary from Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais on Episode 2, a funny and deservedly self-congratulatory featurette on the Golden Globe Awards ceremony, the full video of David Brent's single "If You Don't Know Me By Now" plus a recording session for "Freelove Freeway" (with Noel Gallagher on backing vocals). --Mark Walker
When teenager Christy Bruce disappears from a high school beach party, her severed arm washed ashore a day later. Drunken sea captain Blaise Shaw became a hero to the small seaside community of Harmony after killing the great white shark that was deemed responsible, but the Christy Bruce murder was no shark attack. Blaise turns to ghost hunter Ava Conte, who is skeptical but intrigued by his ghost shark ramblings. With preparations for a massive July 4th celebration rapidly approaching, they ...
Behind Enemy Lines On a reconnaissance flight over eastern Europe disillusioned naval pilot Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and his partner Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) photograph a scene they were not meant to see. When their plane is shot down and Stackhouse is quickly captured and executed Burnett must struggle to survive in unfamiliar hostile territory with a cold-blooded assassin and hundreds of enemy troops on his heels. Meanwhile on an American battleship in the Adriatic Sea Burnett's commanding officer Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman) attempts to negotiate his soldier's return amidst tense political and military maneuvers. Soon Burnett discovers exactly why he's being hunted making his situation and Reigert's actions even more perilous... Tigerland Roland Bozz after being conscripted into the US army joins a platoon of other young soldiers preparing to fight in Vietnam. He has no interest in fighting for his country and tries to get sent home as a trouble maker but his superiors mistake his defiance as intelligence and he soon gets a chance to try his hand at leadership... The Thin Red Line A powerful front line cast including Sean Penn Nick Nolte Woody Harrelson and George Clooney explodes into action in this hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II. Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director (Terrence Malick) 'The Thin Red Line' is an unparalleled cinematic masterpiece.
It feels both inaccurate and inadequate to describe The Office as a comedy. On a superficial level, it disdains all the conventions of television sitcoms: there are no punch lines, no jokes, no laugh tracks and no cute happy endings. More profoundly, it's not what we're used to thinking of as funny. Most of the fervently devoted fan base that the programme acquired watched with a discomfortingly thrilling combination of identification and mortification. The paradox is that its best moments are almost physically unwatchable. Set in the offices of a fictional Slough paper merchant, The Office is filmed in the style of a reality television programme. The writing is subtle and deft, the acting wonderful and the characters beautifully drawn: the cadaverous team leader Gareth, a paradigm of Andy McNab's readership; the monstrous sales rep, Chris Finch; and the decent but long-suffering everyman Tim, whose ambition and imagination have been crushed out of him by the banality of the life he dreams uselessly of escaping. The show is stolen, as it was intended to be, by insufferable office manager David Brent, played by cowriter Ricky Gervais. Brent will become a name as emblematic for a particular kind of British grotesque as Alan Partridge or Basil Fawlty, but he is a deeper character than either. Partridge and Fawlty are exaggerations of reality, and therefore safely comic figures. Brent is as appalling as only reality can be. --Andrew Mueller On the DVD: Series 1 is tastefully packaged as a two-disc set appropriately adorned with John Betjeman's poem "Slough". The special features occupy the second disc and consist of a laid-back 39-minute documentary entitled "How I Made The Office by Ricky Gervais", with cowriter Stephen Merchant and the cast contributing. Here we discover that Gervais spends his time on set "mucking around and annoying people", and that actress Lucy Davis (Dawn) is the daughter of Jasper Carrott; as well as seeing parts of the original short film and the original BBC pilot episode; plus we get to enjoy many examples of the cast corpsing throughout endless retakes. There are also a handful of deleted scenes, none of which were deleted because they weren't funny. Series 2 is a single-disc release, but the extra features are enjoyable nonetheless. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant feature in a gleefully shambolic video diary--highlights of which include Gervais flicking elastic bands at his cowriter and taping their editor to his swivel chair. The ubiquitous Gervais also mockingly introduces some outtakes (mostly of him corpsing throughout dozens of takes) and a series of deleted scenes, notably of Gareth arriving in his horrendous cycle shorts. --Mark Walker
The feature debut of the great Bob Fosse based on the Broadway hit, Sweet Charity is a musical re-imagining of Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, starring the wonderful Shirley MacLaine as a taxi dancer looking for love and escape in hippy-era New York. Special Features: 4K restoration of the 157-minute Roadshow version, complete with Overture, Entr'acte and Exit Music 4K restoration of the general release version, with the original and alternative endings Alternative 2.0 stereo, 4.0 stereo and 5.1 surround soundtrack options Audio commentary with film historians Lee Gambin, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Cara Mitchell (2020) The John Player Lecture with Shirley MacLaine (1971): archival audio recording of the celebrated actor in conversation at London's National Film Theatre From Stage to Screen: A Director's Dilemma (1969): original promotional film featuring interview material with Bob Fosse and rare behind-the-scenes footage The Art of Exaggeration (1969): original promotional film profiling the work of famed costume designer Edith Head Interview with Sonja Haney (2020): audio recording of the dance assistant in conversation with Lee Gambin Now and Then: Sammy Davis Jr (1968): archival interview featuring the actor and singer in conversation with broadcaster Bernard Braden Super 8 version: original cut-down home-cinema presentation Image gallery: publicity and promotional material Original theatrical trailer New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Limited edition exclusive 80-page book with new essays by Pamela Hutchinson and Bill Rosenfield, Neil Simon on Sweet Charity, archival press coverage of the film's release including an interview with Shirley MacLaine, extracts from the pressbook, Federico Fellini on Sweet Charity, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits Limited edition exclusive double-sided poster UK premiere on Blu-ray Limited edition of 3,000 copies
Set at the dawn of the PC-era Halt and Catch Fire follows three unlikely mavericks in the race to build a computer that will revolutionise the modern world. When former IBM executive Joe MacMillan (Lee Pace) plans to reverse engineer IBM’s flagship product in the hope of producing a smaller and faster PC he enlists the help of engineer Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy) and volatile prodigy Cameron Howe (MacKenzie Davis) who between them put their personal and professional lives at risk in the hope of revolutionising the market.
She's a lawyer. He's a cop. Some former KGB-types with a wide variety of slippery accents and enough sophisticated technological surveillance gadgets to make one wonder how the Soviet Union could have possibly failed, want her dead. The cop (William Baldwin) is the only man who can save her. It helps that the high-powered attorney is played by Cindy Crawford, who gives new meaning to the phrase "habeas corpus." So the plot doesn't make any sense: first, they try to kill her, no questions asked. Then they capture her and spill their guts about all the details of their nefarious plan. Logic is not what Fair Game is about. It's about explosions, car crashes and more explosions. The only pauses in the action are for showers (one for Baldwin, two for Crawford) and a change of clothing (Crawford slips out of a tight T-shirt into an even tighter tank top). The best feature of the DVD is the addition of a Gallic track. With very little actual sex in the movie, having the main characters conversing in French definitely adds some sauciness to the dialogue scenes. --Richard Natale, Amazon.com
Meet Will & Grace. Grace is a sassy and smart interior designer Will is a gorgeous and supercool lawyer. They're both looking for love and they're made for each other in every way except for one thing - Grace is straight Will is gay. Their lives are complicated even further by their outrageous friends Karen and Jack. This DVD box set comprises all the episodes from the gut-bustingly funny sixth season. Episodes comprise: 1. Dames At Sea 2. Last Ex To Brooklyn 3. Home
An amiable knock-off of the Ealing comedy style, The Smallest Show on Earth starts with aspiring novelist Bill Travers and his "nice gel" wife Virginia McKenna inheriting a cinema from a hitherto unknown uncle and discovering that it isn't the sumptuous modern Grand, which specialises in those "smash 'em in the face, knock 'em over the waterfront" pictures, but the decrepit Bijou, known locally as "the fleapit". The initial plan, set up by lawyer Leslie Phillips, is to sell off the cinema to the owner of the Grand so he can knock it down to make a car park, but our heroes are put off by the arrogant bullying of the rival manager (Francis De Wolff) and succumb to the inept charms of the crazed, aged staff--drunken projectionist Peter Sellers, doddery commissionaire Bernard Miles and dotty ticket lady Margaret Rutherford (who joined the team as a piano accompanist). In the 1950s, there was a run of gentle British comedies in which outmoded and broken-down local institutions (steam trains, tugboats, vintage cars) were saved by collections of committed eccentrics who despised the new-fangled bus services or soulless council bureaucracies and were willing to resort to a little larceny (in this case, arson). The Smallest Show slots in perfectly with the cycle, getting laughs from the Bijou's already outmoded programme of scratchy Westerns and desert dramas (which increase ice cream sales) and sentiment over the staff's midnight screenings of silent movies that remind them of better days. It's likeable rather than hilarious, with Sellers and Miles buried under crepe hair and fake wrinkles competing to out-dodder each other and losing the picture to the inimitable Rutherford, who doesn't have to fake her eccentricity. Pin-up, June Cunningham, is the glamorous usherette and Sid James plays her annoyed Dad. On the DVD: The Smallest Show on Earth is presented in a decent print, but with no extras. The film is also available as part of the four-disc Peter Sellers Collection. --Kim Newman
When teenager Christy Bruce disappears from a high school beach party, her severed arm washed ashore a day later. Drunken sea captain Blaise Shaw became a hero to the small seaside community of Harmony after killing the great white shark that was deemed responsible, but the Christy Bruce murder was no shark attack. Blaise turns to ghost hunter Ava Conte, who is skeptical but intrigued by his ghost shark ramblings. With preparations for a massive July 4th celebration rapidly approaching, they ...
All the best episodes of the popular TV series featuring Michael Knight (Hasselhoff) and his computerised car KITT... Episode titles: Trust Doesn't Rust Knight of the Phoenix Parts One and Two Soul Survivor Knightmares A Good Knight's Work.
Featuring the films: 'Hoffman' 'The Smallest Show On Earth' 'Carlton-Browne Of The F.O.' and 'Two Way Stretch'. Hoffman *(WS 1.85:1 Anamorphic 1970 1 hour and 47 Minutes Colour): Peter Sellers is Hoffman a middle aged misfit who blackmails his young attractive secretary into spending a week with him. Although he behaves like a creep throughout the weekend he actually emerges as a sympathetic character in the end. Two Way Stretch *(FS 1960 1 hour and 23 minutes B&W):
A story of teenage tearing-away in 1950s America, The Young Stranger fails to make a serious, gripping narrative of the events that follow the somewhat innocuous pivotal moment when 16-year-old Harold "Hal" Ditmar (James MacArthur) punches a cinema manager. Adapted from a TV play and released two years after the benchmark for delinquency movies, Rebel Without a Cause, it has none of that film's raw urgency, seeming staid and inconsequential in comparison. The primary problem is that Hal makes an unconvincing hoodlum. His misdemeanour is less an act of rebellion than a brief misunderstanding. Far from articulating the angst of a generation, his angry tirades against his parents (Kim Hunter and James Daly) and the police set him apart from his peers and feel more like the self-pitying whines of a privileged individual. This sensation is further exacerbated by the fact that all of his problems are swiftly resolved in an all-too-neat ending. Still, The Young Stranger is an interesting period piece, not least for an amusingly tame car chase from first-time feature director John Frankenheimer. --Paul Philpott
Two brothers posing as paramedics kidnap their victims and harvest their organs for the black market. That is until they kidnap a woman they find impossible to kill and it turns out she has more power over them than they over her.
Fired from his job for whistle-blowing, a high-powered executive turns to impregnating lesbian women for cash in the latest film from Spike Lee.
To silence their double-crossing accountant before he tells the cops everything the Lobruttos need a hitman... and fast. Tony Greco is up and coming in the family firm and ideal for the job - all he needs is a few lessons in the fine art of contract killing. And who better to teach him than Steve Rosellini (James Belushi) - Zen master of all hitmen. Under Rosellini's watchful eye Tony learns all about committing the perfect crime until at last it's time to prove he can kill in cold blood. His target? A name picked at random from the LA phone book - Angel Chaste - a young woman Tony soon discovers is ready willing and able to give as good as she gets.
A voodoo priestess brings her brother back to life so he can kill her cousin's bride. The confused zombie kills the wrong woman and is bought back to life a second time to try and finish the deed.
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