Possibly the most alluring mysterious and powerful woman of all time Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) changed the course of history when two of the most powerful men in Rome fell in love with her. Rex Harrison is Julius Caesar who wins the Egyptian throne for Cleopatra marries her and provides her with a child Caesarean. Upon returning to his native country Caesar is crowned Dictator of Rome but his desperate desire for even greater power causes a worried Roman Senate to fatally conspire against him on the Ides of March.
Recorded live at the Jazz Open in Stuttgart in 1994, The Band from Utopia benefits from musicians fleet-fingered enough to replicate the late Frank Zappas intricate amalgams of jazz, rock, classical and r&b. Zappa, who died in 1992, was a prodigious musical talent and one of the few people to build musical bridges between rock and the more "serious" works of Stravinsky and Varese. If theres a weakness in his music, however, its that instead of soul it has only a pervasively sarcastic quality. Zappa's mirthless humour is in evidence here: architecturally breathtaking music and musicianship is sabotaged by titles like "The Illinois Enima (sic) Bandit", while the wistfully gorgeous backdrop of "Outside Now" is disfigured by an embittered, satirical stream-of-consciousness lyric. This project does work, however, not least because of the cheerful tone set by vocalist/guitarist Ike Willis, who invests in the music humane qualities lacking in Zappa. He savours some of Zappas more acrid verse, as in "Bamboozled By Love", while relishing its ploughing, killer blues riff. The rest of the band, meanwhile, set about their task of restoring old Zappa classics like 1968s "Uncle Meat" with an infectiously good-natured enthusiasm. Playing with Zappa, a notorious disciplinarian, was probably never this much fun. The Stuttgart audience look as if theyve wandered in from Songs of Praise and the Band From Utopia have the Dress Sense From Hell, but overall this is a musica! l celebration worth celebrating. On the DVD: The Band from Utopia disc has no extra features. The digital soundtrack is immaculate, though, and the video aspect ratio 4.3. --David Stubbs
Once again returning to the genre to which he was perhaps best-suited director Lewis Milestone traces the fate of a Marine platoon in the Pacific theater during WWII. The film stars Richard Widmark as the no-nonsense Lt. Carl Anderson an officer charged with the responibility of leading his unit on a scouting mission to capture prisoners from an experimental rocket-launching facility and bring them back for interrogation. Among his platoon are veterans Pidgeon Lane (Jack Palance) D
Director Michele Soavi does the impossible by squeezing a few more drops of blood out from the slasher genre. Not only that, Soavi lensed one of the most beautiful and suspenseful horror movies of the 1980s. A genuinely haunting horror where the killer dressed as an owl goes to bloody work with a chainsaw that slices through flesh and bone...
Made in Munich while Bergman was in self-imposed exile from Sweden, From the Life of the Marionettes is not so much a "whodunit" as a "whydunnit". The film opens with the shockingly violent and senseless murder of a prostitute by Peter, a young, successful businessman. Through a series of non-chronological flashbacks to a time before the crime, we attempt to fathom just what impelled Peter to perpetrate this terrible murder. Along with wife Katarina, the character Peter also featured in Bergman's 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage. Here, as there, we see that they are wedded in the sense of being emotionally chained to each other, yet hating each other for their mutual dependency. There is also a perturbing scene in which they both appear to "get off" when he takes a knife to her throat. His cold and duplicitous psychiatrist glibly ascribes the murder to a repressed homosexuality resulting in a violent outburst, while Katarina's business partner, who is gay, appears to harbour a desire to sabotage the pair's marriage. This film has an airless, fake-lit quality about it, which reflects the conditions of the characters' lives but by the end, leaves you mesmerised and still uncertain as to why what happened has happened. A late but great Bergman work. On the DVD: This edition adequately enhances the stark monochrome in which most of the film is set. Bergman's notes reveal that his depictions of Peter in his psychiatric ward were based on his own behaviour during a recent spell in a similar institution following his arrest for tax evasion. Philip Strick's critical notes observe that the sparing use of colour at the beginning and end of the film signify what may have been the only times in Peter's life when he "experienced reality". --David Stubbs
A World War II double-bill comes to DVD with the pairing of The Young Lions (1958) and D-Day the Sixth of June (1956). Edward Dmytryk's The Young Lions is one of the most thoughtful films about the War. Based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, it tells parallel stories of two American soldiers (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) and one German officer (Marlon Brando), whose war experiences we follow until they intersect outside a concentration camp. Martin plays what he calls "a likable coward", Clift is intense as a Jewish GI, and Brando experiments with the limits of his part as a Nazi re-evaluating his beliefs. Legend has it that Clift accused Brando of bleeding-heart excessiveness. Interestingly, the two Method actors share no scenes together. --Tom Keogh D-Day the Sixth of June is a misleading title for a very tame wartime romance with barely 10 minutes of combat in the last reel. What we mostly get is a year's worth of flashbacks depicting the reluctant, London-based affair of a married US staff officer (Robert Taylor) and a British Red Cross worker (Dana Wynter) whose commando suitor (Richard Todd) is fighting in Africa. To be sure, the emotional desperation and embattled decency of good people in time of war is as worthy of film treatment as any military campaign, and the script works pre-invasion Anglo-American tensions into the story. But the CinemaScope production is utterly formulaic, with leaden direction by Henry Koster. Wynter's porcelain beauty apparently didn't permit changes of expression, and Taylor looks about 15 years past his prime. --Richard T Jameson
West of the Pecos (1945): Robert Mitchum stars in this well plotted exciting Zane Grey Western. Thurston Hall and his daughter Barbara Hale are accosted by robbers en route to their Texas ranch from Chicago. This is only the start of their troubles as they encounter hold-ups horse stampedes and outlaws. Hiring Robert Mitchum and his sidekick to run their ranch leads to further problems because of Mitchum's checkered past. Plot twists and Suspense highlight this old west cla
On a small island off the California coast it's July 4th and tourists are washing up dead in Babylon Bay... Aquanoids is a sea creature horror film that delivers a healthy dose of horror combined with a sexy star breathtaking scenery extensive underwater photography state of the art creature effects and a fast paced story with enough action to make anyone have to come up for air....
THE LUCKY ONES DIED FIRST... Horror master Wes Craven achieved critical and commercial success with the likes of Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street but for many genre fans, the director s seminal 1977 effort The Hills Have Eyes remains his masterpiece. Taking a detour whilst on route to Los Angeles, the Carter family run into trouble when their campervan breaks down in the middle of the desert. Stranded, the family find themselves at the mercy of a group of monstrous cannibals lurking in the surrounding hills. With their lives under threat, the Carters are forced to fight back by any means necessary. As gruelling a viewing experience today as it was upon initial release, The Hills Have Eyes stands alongside the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Night of the Living Dead as one of the defining moments in American horror cinema. Limited Edition Contents: Brand new 4K restoration from original film elements, supervised by producer Peter Locke High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original mono audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing 6 x postcards Reversible fold-out poster featuring new and original artwork Limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Brad Stevens and a consideration of the Hills franchise by Ewan Cant, illustrated with original archive stills Audio commentary with Wes Craven and Peter Locke Looking Back on The Hills Have Eyes making-of documentary featuring interviews with Craven, Locke, actors Michael Berryman, Dee Wallace, Janus Blythe, Robert Houston, Susan Lanier and director of photography Eric Saarinen The Desert Sessions brand new interview with composer Don Peake Alternate ending, in HD for the first time Trailers and TV Spots Image Gallery Original Screenplay (BD/DVD-ROM Content) Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper
The Sundance Kid is the fastest gun in the West his sidekick Butch is a dreamer always planning that bigger better bank raid. But things are getting tougher and soon the accident-prone anti-heroes decide it's time to head south and disappear into legend. Winner of 4 Oscars including Best Screenplay for William Goldman and Best Song ('Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head') and Best Score for Burt Bacharach.
This great DVD collection contains the following titles: 1. Attack! (dir. Robert Aldrich 1956) 2. 633 Squadron (dir. Walter Grauman 1964) 3. The Bridge At Remagen (dir. John Guillermin 1969) 4. A Bridge Too Far (dir. Richard Attenborough 1977) 5. The Great Escape (dir. John Sturges 1963) 6. Hart's War (dir. Gregory Hoblit 2002) 7. Platoon (dir. Oliver Stone 1986) 8. Windtalkers (dir. John Woo 2002) 9. The Dogs Of War (dir. John Irvin 1981) 10. Under Fire (dir. Roger Spottiswoode 1983)
This box set contains two double DVD's featuring the entire second series. Based on real-life experiences this is the powerful story of women whose lives are changed forever. Thrown together by the chaos of war and fearing for their lives they learn to survive the harsh conditions and regime of prison camp life. It is 1942 and the women have been split into two groups to march to their new camp....
A young boy gets caught up in the epic magical battle between the evil sorceress Morgana and the ancient wizard Merlin.
A fascinating and colourful screen biography of Jerome Kern (Robert Walker). It starts with the opening night of his smash hit Showboat and flashes back to his beginnings as an almost penniless songwriter. The film follows his friendship with James I. Hessler and journeys to England where the best songwriters are reputed to be and where he finds his early successes - and the future Mrs Kern (Dorothy Patrick). After some difficult times in the USA he collaborates with Oscar Hammerstein; the result being the classic adaptation of Edna Ferber's Showboat. The picture's grand finale features Frank Sinatra singing Ol' Man River. This is one huge and lavish theatrical feast; great entertainment!
An American widow arrives in the Mexican town of Bastard in a black hearse which contains an empty coffin. She is searching for the killer of her husband who she intends to have killed and take back to the States in the coffin. All she has to go on is the name Aguila. But she is not the only one searching for him. A Colonel in the Mexican army also intends to find him and take him to Mexico City and execute him. Only one man stands in their way a local priest who is far more tha
When three fugitives fresh off a casino heist stop for gas at the Six Corners Cafe in Death Valley they encounter an unexpectedly hostile breakfast crowd. Gunshots erupt. An explosion destroys the gas station. As the fire burns down people are missing. Only six seem to have survived - a sheriff and his son two of the criminals a female doctor and a young waitress. It's a volatile and eclectic combination of survivors - the Godd the Bad and the Cute. The fire department never arrives. The highway is deserted. No one comes to help. No one living that is. The survivors discover they are trapped in an in between world in a supernatural plane between night and day light and dark the living and the dead. And they are not alone. Horribly mutilated dead people mysteriously appear and warn of an inescapable killer - an evil trailing a sickening force of decay and rot. In order to see another day the survivors must unite set their differences aside and combine their skills and resources to fight off the source of these deaths - the soul collecting terrifying killing machine known as the Reeker.
The Carter family taken a wrong turn when crossing the desert for California and are attacked by a savage group of cannibals. For the Carters who have to revert to their own primitive instincts it is a battle for survival: the lucky ones died first...
Claire Cooper's (Annette Bening) peaceful family life takes a chilling turn when a mysterious serial killer (Robert Downey Jr.) invades her seemingly idyllic New England town and haunts her dreams with dark clues to his next deadly moves. With frightening accuracy Claire predicts his every turn but still no one believes her. Unable to convince the police her doctor (Stephen Rea) or even her husband (Aidian Quinn) of her mind-link with the madman Clair must confront the killer alon
John Wayne has brawled bare-knuckled gunned down desperadoes fought jungle wars and piloted the skies. But 'The Cowboys' gives him one of his juiciest roles as a leather-tough rancher who deserted by his regular help hires eleven greenhorn schoolboys for a cattle drive across 400 treacherous miles. When the dust settles Wayne gives one of his best performances. In The Cowboys Rex Reed wrote All the forces that have made him a dominant personality as well as a major screen presence seem to combine. Old Dusty Britches can act. Co-starring the equally memorable Roscoe Lee Browne Colleen Dewhurst and Bruce Dern 'The Cowboys' is exciting proof. This version never before released in the UK includes a previously deleted scene.
Available for the first time on DVD! Pray you never hear the last gasp! A wealthy real estate developer Leslie Chase runs a wild native tribe the Totec off their sacred land-and murders their chieftain. The dying chieftain breathes his last gasp into Chase's mouth. This last breath actually contains a curse in which Chase inherits a bloodthirsty need to kill humans and eat their flesh. After years of being tormented by these irresistible urges serial murderer Chase is pursued by a private investigator who was hired by the wife of one of her victims to locate her missing husband.
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy