First broadcast in 1983, Auf Wiedersehen Pet was an unlikely comedy hit about a group of British labourers forced to work in Germany during the recession. Scripted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, (previously responsible for Porridge and The Likely Lads) its main players are likeable stereotypes from all over England: theres Wayne (the late Gary Holton), a cockney charmer and womaniser; Barry (Timothy Spall), the bumbling, haplessly pretentious Brummie; gentle West Country giant Bomber (Pat Roach); amiable Scouse Moxey (Christopher Fairbank); and the three Geordies; nervous Neville (Kevin Whately), loudmouth xenophobic lummox Oz (Jimmy Nail) and put-upon Dennis (Tim Healy), the reluctant gaffer of the mob. The show spawned a second series in 1986 then a belated follow-up in 2002. The plotlines were entertaining--capers usually involving misunderstandings or hangovers or both: Oz eating rat poison, Oz attempting to smuggle porn, Neville waking up after a large night out with a German girls name mysteriously tattooed on his arm; Denniss tentative relationship with a German woman named Dagmar while on the rebound from his recent divorce. However, the real meat of Auf Wiedersehen Pet was in the interplay of the characters--who were confined in prison camp-style conditions--and Clement and Le Frenais rueful sense of the comedy of men in crisis. Tim Healys Dennis in particular was a classic example of the indignity of the traditional grafter who suddenly finds himself struggling in mid-life, a condition exacerbated at having to "wet nurse" a bunch of wayward geezers, as he frequently complains. --David Stubbs
An American Tail: Fievel is a young Russian mouse and he and his parents are on their way to America. Why? Well they believe that America is the land of no cats. On the journey to America though Fieval loses his parents and arrives in the New World all alone. To add further misery in Fieval America is not all what it is cracked up to be...there are cats there to! Fieval never gives up hope though and with his new found friends he begins a search for his parents all the time dodging the cats he thought he'd be long rid of. An American Tail 2: Look out pardners there's a new mouse in town! Some time after the Mousekewitz's have settled in America they find that they are still having problems with the threat of cats. That makes them eager to try another home out in the west where they are promised that mice and cats live in peace. Unfortunately the one making this claim is an oily con artist named Cat R. Waul who is intent on his own sinister plan. Unaware of this the Mousekewitz's begin their journey west while their true cat friend Tiger follows intent on following his girlfriend gone in the same direction.
Oscar nominee Janet McTeer (Tumbleweeds) stars as Helen Hewitt, the youngest woman ever to be placed in charge of an all-male maximum-security prison, in this hard-hitting drama series written and produced by the multi-award-winning Lynda La Plante (Prime Suspect, Widows). Series two continues to trace Helen s progress following her high-profile and controversial appointment as governor of Barfield Prison a troubled institution which has been partially rebuilt following recent rioting. The situation within the prison remains highly volatile; this series sees Helen negotiating in a traumatic hostage crisis, while among Barfield's 700 inmates is new arrival Tarzan one of Britain's most dangerous men. And Helen is to face her toughest challenge when the staging of the prisoners musical provides the perfect cover for a prison breakout by some of Barfield's most violent top-security inmates...
The Ipcress File - The tense spy thriller by Len Deighton that turned Michael Caine into a superstar. Cynical and rebellious ex-army sergeant Harry Palmer has been blackmailed into working for Britain's security service. Hot on the trail of a kidnapped scientist Palmer finds himself enmeshed in a sinister conspiracy involving horrifying brainwashing techniques murder and treachery that reaches up to the highest levels of the security service itself... Kidnapped - When young David Balfour arrives at his uncle's bleak Scottish house to claim his inheritance his relative first tries to murder him and then has him shipped off to be sold as a slave in the colonies. Fortunately for David he strikes up a friendship with Alan Breck (Michael Caine) and together they manage to escape. On arriving back in England they set out for Edinburgh dodging the ruthless Redcoats to claim David's rightful inheritance. Educating Rita - Rita a hairdresser with a sharp wit is married to Danny and at 26 doesn't want a baby. She wants to discover herself - so she joins the Open University. Dr Frank Bryant is a disillusioned university professor of literature. His marriage has failed his girlfriend is having an affair with his best friend and he can't get through the day without downing a bottle or two of whiskey. He refers to himself as an appalling teacher of appalling students. What Frank needs is a challenge - and along comes Rita. In this hilarious and often moving drama the story tells how two people find a new lease of life through each other. The Fouth Protocol - On July 1 1968 America Britain and Russia signed a treaty to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. The powers then added four extra clauses. The most secret of them was and remains the final. On winter the Chairman of the KGB hatches a plan to breach this Fourth Protocol and destroy NATO. He sends an agent Major Petrofsky (Pierece Brosnan) to assemble the operation. It is now up to MI6 agent John Preston (Michael Caine) who now must race against an unknown deadline to stop him and his devasting mission.
Mickey's House of Mouse Villains seeks to do for Halloween what Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed In at the House of Mouse (2001) did for Yuletide. It's an anthology set on Halloween in the titular house, a nightclub where characters--including Donald Duck, Goofy, Jafar, Cruella de Vil, and Captain Hook--gather to watch Disney cartoons. There's a perfunctory framing plot with the villains taking over the House, but the 65 minutes is almost entirely filled by eight short cartoons. Five are very recent, with clinically clean computer animation, and three are vintage gems glowing with the warm detailed look of Golden Age Disney. These are Trick or Treat (1952), Donald Duck and the Gorilla (1944), and Lonesome Ghosts (1937), in which Mickey, Donald and Goofy star in what was surely the inspiration for Ghostbusters. The best of the new adventures is Mickey's Mechanical House, in which the mouse moves into a futuristic house which goes disastrously wrong. It's made all the more entertaining by a poetic rhyming narration delivered by John Cleese. Young children will love it all, while older fans may prefer a compilation of vintage Disney shorts. On the DVD: Mickey's House of Mouse Villains DVD contains a well-designed animated quiz game, "Wheel of Misfortune", that should entertain young fans for a while. Otherwise, the extras consist of three trailers and a "Fright Reel": a three-minute compilation of Disney clips with two Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. The choice amounts to the same sound effects with or without music. The sound is good, except for the three vintage animations, which are in mono. The picture is 4:3 and is generally very sharp, though varies a little with the source material. --Gary S Dalkin
Versatility, thy name is Van Damme! So Arnold cries in End of Days? Hah! In this relentless revenge actioner, Jean-Claude not only cries, but has a drunk scene, suffers suicidal despair, does a little slapstick, and still manages to flash his ubiquitous butt. Which, of course, is what his legion of fans want to see him kick plenty of (other people's butts, that is; not his own). Van Damme may no longer generate any box-office heat (like 1998's Legionnaire, this bypassed cinemas to go straight to video), but he at least gives his fans what they want. Originally titled Coyote Moon, Desert Heat recalls that guilty pleasure Road House, as Eddie Lomax (Van Damme) comes to the rescue of a gallery of colourful characters terrorised by slobbering, drug-dealing bikers and rednecks in a dilapidated desert town. And this time, it's personal. As one denizen ominously observes, "There's trouble on the hoof and it's coming this way" for the three ill-fated bullies who beat up and shot Eddie and left him for dead. Despite its desert setting, Heat is an oasis for great character actors who pick up Van Damme's considerable slack. They include Danny Trejo (Con Air) as Eddie's Native American friend Johnny Sixtoes, Pat Morita (The Karate Kid), Larry Drake (Darkman), Vincent Schiavelli (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ghost), Bill Erwin (Candy Stripe Nurses), and luscious Jaime Preslly as Dottie the waitress. The director is credited as Danny Mulroon, a pseudonym for John Avildsen, the Academy Award-winning director of Rocky. His career, too, seems to be on the ropes, but he keeps punching with some welcome eccentric touches. At one point Johnny gives the recuperating Eddie a foot massage (didn't he see Pulp Fiction?). And the script offers such goodies as a lovelorn bus driver (Tom's brother, Jim Hanks) inviting Dottie to see Yojimbo, and one biker's plea for mercy from a local tough: "Jessie, we were in high school together. I signed your yearbook". --Donald Liebenson, Amazon.com
Demonic Toys
WillowTimid yet valiant dwarf and apprentice magician Willow Ufgood (Davis) is entrusted with delivering a tiny royal infant from evil queen Bavmorda to fulfil a prophecy that will restore peace and justice to the land... LegendIn Ridley Scott's 'Legend' young Jack (Cruise) lives in a magic forest populated with friendly and exotic creatures. But the delicate balance between good and evil is upset when the Lord of Darkness seizes Jack's beloved Lili (Sara) and a horn from one of the last unicorns thereby gaining control of the universe. LadyhawkeLadyhawke is an enchanting tale of a beauty a knight - and a pickpocket known as the Mouse. Once the knight and the lady were lovers. Now the curse of an evil Bishop keeps them always together eternally apart. By day she is a hawk by night he is a wolf. To end the evil spell the knight vows to break into the Bishop's stonghold with help from the Mouse...
Marlon Brando's famous "I coulda been a contenda" speech in On the Water Front is such a war horse by now that a lot of people probably feel they've seen the film already, even if they haven't. And many of those who have seen it may have forgotten how flat-out thrilling it is. For all its great dramatic and cinematic qualities, and its fiery social criticism, Elia Kazan's has created one of the most gripping melodramas of political corruption and individual heroism ever made in the United States, a five-star gut-grabber. Shot on location around the docks of Hoboken, New Jersey, in the mid-1950s, it tells the fact-based story of a longshoreman (Brando's Terry Malloy) who is blackballed and savagely beaten for informing against the mobsters who have taken over his union and sold it out to the bosses. (Karl Malden has a more conventional stalwart-hero role, as an idealistic priest who nurtures Terry's pangs of conscience.) Lee J Cobb, who created the role of Willy Loman in Death of Salesman under Kazan's direction on Broadway, makes a formidable foe as a greedy union leader. --David Chute, Amazon.com
The Karate KidWhen he is plagued by attacks and the cruel jokes of a gang of vengeful kids, a young teenager takes karate lessons in the hope that it will make him strong. In the end he learns the more important lesson, that fighting is the last answer to a problem, not the first. The Karate Kid IISequel to 'Karate Kid' which continues the story of a young man growing up under the guidance of his Japanese mentor, Daniel and Miyagi travel to Okinawa where they find they are no longer part of a game played by the rules... The Karate Kid IIIWhen Daniel decides not to compete in a karate championship he becomes the target of a vicious competitor who wants the title back. But when the relentless abuse becomes black-mail, Daniel goes against the sound advice of Miyagi and enters the competition, thus alienating the only person who can help him.
Julie Christie stars in an award-winning adaptation of Doris Lessing's famous dystopian novel of 1974. This complex haunting science-fiction feature - screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1981 - is presented in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Set in Britain at an unspecified point in the near-future Memoirs of a Survivor tells the story of 'D' a housewife trying to carry on after a cataclysmic war that has left society in a state of collapse. Rubbish is piled high in the streets among near-derelict buildings covered with graffiti; the electricity supply is variable and water is now collected from a van. 'D' spends her time examining her relations with authority with the marauding gangs of brutalised children who roam the streets and with Emily the traumatised orphaned teenager who is delivered into her care. Special Features: Image Gallery Promotional Material PDFS
Dave (Kelly) and Locky (O'Shea) are a couple of old-timers who have found the perfect scam offering solace and peace to the bereaved and an injection of cash to their pockets. Posing as a medium in touch with the other side Dave acts as the front man whilst his partner relays messages from 'beyond the grave'. All is going swimmingly until Larry the kingpin from the local mob gets killed and his wife wants to know where he's hidden his last haul. Unable to refuse a request from
A young woman faces life in a shabby London boarding house after being jilted and left pregnant. Sharing her desperation with an assortment of neighbours they help her to decide whether to have an abortion...
The Elvis formula was well in place by the time of 1964's Roustabout, a concoction of undistinguished songs (anyone remember "Poison Ivy League"?), pretty girls, tight pants, a colourful setting and a little bit of karate to prove that Elvis really had been studying his martial arts. With that understood, Roustabout is a better-than-average work-out for the King--not as peppy as Viva Las Vegas, but a good deal livelier than the sleepwalking It Happened at the World's Fair. Elvis plays a bad-boy singer roaming the highways on his Japanese motorcycle; laid up after an accident, he joins a carnival owned by the feisty Barbara Stanwyck. ("This is not a circus, it's a carnival. There's a big difference.") The cast goes from high to low: both giant-sized future James Bond villain Richard Kiel and tiny Billy Barty are carny regulars, and Raquel Welch has a small role in the opening scene. Teri Garr is one of the carnival dancers behind Elvis. The legendary costume designer Edith Head puts Elvis in a series of snappy windbreakers, but thank goodness he's also in black leather a lot. As if that weren't enough to recommend it, the movie has a sequence involving Elvis riding a cycle inside the "Wall of Death", a huge wooden cylinder with high walls. This bit actually inspired an entire Irish film in 1986, Eat the Peach, in which friends build a similar contraption after they watch Roustabout on tape. --Robert Horton
""You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum which is what I am let's face it."" - Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) Marlon Brando is the longshoreman who finds himself increasingly isolated when he challenges the might and power of the tough New York City dockers' Union. Rod Steiger is his elder brother torn between loyalty to union and love of family. Lee J. Cobb is the powerful union boss while Eva Marie Saint
Peter Fry (Dean Stockwell - Quantum Leap) is a boy with no hair who refuses to speak to child psychologist Dr Evans (Robert Ryan) as to why he has been found lost and completely bald. But when the doctor shares his hamburger with him Peter tells his incredible story expect doubting that the doctor will believe him. Peter a typical American boy is orphaned when his parents are caught in the London Blitz. With no one wishing to tell him of his parents' fate Peter is shuttled from one selfish relative to the next ending with Gramp (Pat O'Brien) a kindly ex-vaudevillian. Peter learns from his teacher Miss Brand (Barbara Hale) that he is a war orphan and the very next morning his hair turns green! But other kids jeer at him; adults are perturbed and even the kindly milkman turns against him. The absurd over-reactions of stupid people make his life a misery and drive him away. The Boy With Green Hair is Joseph Losey's film parable of tolerance and pacifism that was way ahead of its time.
The ebullient comedy films of the 1930s brought escape and laughter to millions of British cinemagoers, enabling veteran stars of the music-hall and theatre to reach out to a wider audience making household names of performers like Leslie Fuller, Hal Gordon, Bobby Howes, Ernest Lotinga and Gene Gerrard. Although comedy would prove to be the decade's most successful film genre, many of these classic early talkies have remained unseen since their original release. From boisterous knockabout humour to polished adaptations of popular stage farces, this ongoing collection showcases a wealth of rare features, each presented uncut, in a brand-new transfer from the best available elements in their as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Housemaster (1938) The incoming headmaster of a venerable public school causes ructions when he unleashes a welter of red tape and puritanical 'reforms'. Black and White / 91 mins / 1.37:1 / Mono / English Me And My Pal (1939) When Dave and Hal are stopped for speeding, Dave's remonstrations are overheard by a racketeer who thinks he's just the kind of mug he could put to use... Black and White / 71 mins / 1.37:1 / Mono / English
The music of troubled Manchunian band Joy Division is put under the spotlight.
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