Billed as a "re-imagining" of the original film, Tim Burton's extraordinary Planet of the Apes constantly borders on greatness, adhering to the spirit of Pierre Boulle's original novel while exploring fresh and inventive ideas and paying honourable tribute to the '68 sci-fi classic. Burton's gifts for eccentric inspiration and visual ingenuity make this a movie that's as entertaining as it is provocative, beginning with Rick Baker's best-ever ape make-up (hand that man an Oscar®!), and continuing through the surprisingly nuanced performances and breathtaking production design. Add to all this an intelligent screenplay that turns Boulle's speculative reversal--the dominance of apes over humans--into a provocative study of civil rights and civil war. The film finally goes too far with a woefully misguided ending that pays weak homage to the original, but everything preceding that misfire is astonishingly right. While attempting the space-pod retrieval of a chimpanzee test pilot, Major Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) enters a magnetic storm that propels him into the distant future, where he crash-lands on the ape-ruled planet. Among the primitively civilized apes, treatment of enslaved humans is a divisive issue: senator's daughter Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) advocates equality while the ruthless General Thade (Tim Roth) promotes extermination. While Davidson ignites a human rebellion, this conflict is explored with admirable depth and emotion, and sharp dialogue allows Burton's exceptional cast to bring remarkable expressiveness to their embattled ape characters, most notably in the comic relief of orangutan slave trader Limbo (played to perfection by Paul Giamatti). Classic lines from the original film are cleverly reversed (including an unbilled cameo for Charlton Heston, in ape regalia as Thade's dying father), and while this tale of interspecies warfare leads to an ironic conclusion that's not altogether satisfying, it still bears the ripe fruit of a timeless what-if idea. --Jeff Shannon
Billed as a "re-imagining" of the original film, Tim Burton's extraordinary Planet of the Apes constantly borders on greatness, adhering to the spirit of Pierre Boulle's original novel while exploring fresh and inventive ideas and paying honourable tribute to the '68 sci-fi classic. Burton's gifts for eccentric inspiration and visual ingenuity make this a movie that's as entertaining as it is provocative, beginning with Rick Baker's best-ever ape make-up (hand that man an Oscar®!), and continuing through the surprisingly nuanced performances and breathtaking production design. Add to all this an intelligent screenplay that turns Boulle's speculative reversal--the dominance of apes over humans--into a provocative study of civil rights and civil war. The film finally goes too far with a woefully misguided ending that pays weak homage to the original, but everything preceding that misfire is astonishingly right. While attempting the space-pod retrieval of a chimpanzee test pilot, Major Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) enters a magnetic storm that propels him into the distant future, where he crash-lands on the ape-ruled planet. Among the primitively civilized apes, treatment of enslaved humans is a divisive issue: senator's daughter Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) advocates equality while the ruthless General Thade (Tim Roth) promotes extermination. While Davidson ignites a human rebellion, this conflict is explored with admirable depth and emotion, and sharp dialogue allows Burton's exceptional cast to bring remarkable expressiveness to their embattled ape characters, most notably in the comic relief of orangutan slave trader Limbo (played to perfection by Paul Giamatti). Classic lines from the original film are cleverly reversed (including an unbilled cameo for Charlton Heston, in ape regalia as Thade's dying father), and while this tale of interspecies warfare leads to an ironic conclusion that's not altogether satisfying, it still bears the ripe fruit of a timeless what-if idea. --Jeff Shannon
Tom Hanks's debut as a writer and director is a lively, affectionate account of the shooting-star career of a forgotten (fictional) 1960s pop-rock band called The Wonders--as in "one-hit wonders". Hanks plays the manager of the group, which includes drummer Guy "Sticks" Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) who works the floor at his parents' appliance store in Erie, Pennsylvania; Jimmy (Johnathon Schaech), the talented and temperamental lead singer and songwriter; Lenny (Steve Zahn), the goofy guitarist; and Ethan Embry as a geeky little fellow identified in the cast list only as "The Bass Player". The movie traces their meteoric rise and fall, from cutting their first record, to going on tour with a Phil Spector/Motown-type revue, to the internal tensions that lead to the band's disintegration, which comes when they fail to follow up their smash hit single, "That Thing You Do!" And that song, by the way, is so catchy it would definitely have been a hit in 1964--and deserves to be one today. This delightful movie would make a great double-bill with Allison Anders's wonderful Grace of My Heart. --Jim Emerson
NOTICE: Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk has English audio.
Revealing a truly adult edge never previously seen Harry Enfield brings us the best bits of his 'Brand Spanking New Show' with a whole new gang of chums and catchphrases. New characters include: Cornish Ladies Man the last of the great West Country lovers; Chris Great the 'fictional' red-headed DJ who owns the radio station; Shagging Couple still at it after all these years; Paxman the journalist with a very direct interviewing style; The Pharmacist thorough but rather indiscreet; Mother & Daughter people think we're sisters; and loads more.
Elliot Brindle is a bright but meek salesman drowning in debt and about to marry the love of his life when he receives a mysterious phone call informing him that he's on a hidden camera game show where he must execute 13 tasks to receive a multi-million dollar cash prize. However Elliot soon realises he's trapped into the horrors created and manipulated by his unseen spectators as each task escalates in danger and depravity to a devastating point of no return.
Big budget sci-fi action based on the original film series of the late 1960s and early 1970s. James Franco stars as Will Rodman, a genetic engineer working in present-day San Francisco who is performing scientific tests on apes in his attempt to find a cure for Alzheimer's. His first test subject is Caesar (Andy Serkis), the prototype of a new breed of apes with human-like intelligence. But when Caesar breaks free, a revolution is triggered and an epic war for supremacy breaks out between humankind and the primates of the world.
A condemned murderer eager to prove his innocence stages a spectacular escape from prison. Injured in the breakout he hides out at a friend's house disguised as the gardener. His only chance rests with a Supreme Court candidate who is renting the house for the summer. But all hopes are dashed when he refuses to help.
Following a mission in Iran which goes spectacularly wrong, Special Boat Service agent Stratton (Dominic Cooper) is summoned by the head of MI6 (Connie Nielson) to undertake another deadly operation. Having been presumed dead, former Soviet operative Barovski (Thomas Kretschmann) has gone rogue and intends to use deadly chemical weapons stolen from his former paymasters to take revenge. Stratton and his team are dispatched to track down Barovski in a nailbiting race against time to the unimaginable happening. Features: Cast & Crew Interviews Making Stratton featurette
Following a mission in Iran which goes spectacularly wrong, Special Boat Service agent Stratton (Dominic Cooper) is summoned by the head of MI6 (Connie Nielson) to undertake another deadly operation. Having been presumed dead, former Soviet operative Barovski (Thomas Kretschmann) has gone rogue and intends to use deadly chemical weapons stolen from his former paymasters to take revenge. Stratton and his team are dispatched to track down Barovski in a nailbiting race against time to the unimaginable happening. Features: Cast & Crew Interviews Making Stratton featurette
Bachelor Party (1984): This outrageously funny look at one man's final moments of bachelorhood stars Tom Hanks as Rick reluctant recipient of a bachelor bash given by a group of friends who view partying as their full-time religion. Rick's worried fiance Debbie (Tawny Kitaen) dresses up in disguise and crashes the party to spy on her future husband. To complicate the night further Debbie's father hires her ex-boyfriend to win back his daughter. It turns out to be an evenin
The second instalment of John Ford's famous cavalry trilogy, this meditative Western continues the director's fascination with history's obliteration of the past. It features one of John Wayne's more sensitive performances as Capt. Nathan Brittles, a stern yet sentimental war horse who has difficulty preparing for his impending military retirement. All things considered, he refuses to leave before fulfilling his obligation to the local Indian tribe. It's a film about honour and duty as well as loneliness and mortality. And Oscar-winner Winton C. Hoch beautifully photographs it in Remington-like Technicolor tones (you've never seen such stunning cloud-covered skies). The combination of melancholy and farce (Victor McLaglen makes a perfect court jester) evokes comparisons to Shakespeare. Best of all, the scene in which Wayne fights back tears when receiving a gold watch from his troops is unforgettably bittersweet. If you view the whole trilogy, it actually makes sense to save this for last. --Bill Desowitz, Amazon.com
Road To Perdition Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan a father fighting to keep his only son from traveling the Road To Perdition. Directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes this towering motion picture achievement has been acclaimed by audiences and critics alike as one of the year's most extraordinary films. Miller's Crossing The year is 1929. The place is an gangster-ridden American city run by Leo (Albert Finney). But the real power lies with Tom (Gabriel Byrne) the power behind the man. Their friendship is severed when they both fall in love with the same woman (Marcia Gay Harden) and a bloody gang war erupts... The Funeral Petty mobsters Ray Tempio (Christopher Walken) and Chez Tempio (Chris Penn) have just lost their younger brother Johnny (Vincent Gallo) -he was shot three times gangland style at a movie theatre. Ray vows revenge - he suspects the leader of a rival crime syndicate is responsible but his wife Jeanette (Anabella Sciorra) pleads for him to leave it alone. Meanwhile Chez already on the verge of a breakdown is just making life hell for his wife Clara (Isabella Rossellini) and those around him.
Miller's Crossing: The year is 1929. The place is a gangster-ridden American city run by Leo (Albert Finney). But the real power lies with Tom (Gabriel Byrne) the power behind the man. Their friendship is severed when they both fall in love with the same woman (Marcia Gay Harden) and a bloody gang war erupts... Road To Perdition: Two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan a father fighting to keep his only son from traveling the Road To Perditio
Car crazy! Speed crazy! Boy crazy! Fay Spain is tunning in her role as a teenage femme fatal who has rich guy Fred Armstrong and poor but nice Jim Donaldson drooling over her. She plays them off against each other and as the hormones rise so does the violence. Fred is rich but not so nice and he keep slosing the fights and so decides to win the local hot rod race by fair means or foul. Thinking it would knock the very nice Jim out of the fight for the hand of Fay. This has dire consequences for all the characters involved.....
After word gets around the 'hood that a robber on the run has stashed his loot in the back yard of Dre a young man for whom life happens. Men and women alike want him for the supposed ill-gotten gains and so plain Dre is suddenly the focus of all sorts of scams and schemes...
A Marine platoon is ambushed during a mission leaving only three soldiers alive to fend off the growing army of the living dead. En route to their pickup point they come across an abandoned house with three mysterious women hiding out inside. If they can make it through the night they're home free...or so they think because someone is hiding a dark secret that may alter the course of this gore-drenched war...
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