Howard Hawks's final film once again teams him with John Wayne with a script by Leigh Brackett (who also wrote his 'El Dorado' and 'Rio Bravo'). The time is just after the end of the Civil War. Wayne is Union Colonel Cord McNally who is teamed with two Confederate soldiers he captured during the war in order to take down a thieving bootlegger. Their travels take them to a small town being held in terror by an evil Sheriff. McNally and his crew decide to help the townspeople with
Henry Hathaway's directorial skills brought a heightened sense of realism to crime dramas in this classic 1947 original that marked Richard Widmark's Oscar -nominated debut. When a small time crook (Victor Mature) gets a twenty year sentence for robbery, he refuses to reveal his accomplices, even after a D.A. (Brian Donlevy) offers to help him. But he changes his mind once he learns that his wife has committed suicide and a psychopath (Widmark) has threatened his children. Extras: High Definition Transfer Commentary by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver Original Theatrical Trailer Stills Gallery Plus many more TBA
Steven Seagal (Maximum Conviction) is Alexander Coates a Special Forces operator who becomes haunted by his past when a little girl dies in his arms on a mission in Iraq. Looking for redemption Alexander goes off grid. Two years later Alexander is trying to lead a quiet life. But when one of his tenants and her family fall under the thumb of a Russian gangster he is dragged into an all-out war between rival Chinese and Russian gangs; forcing him to not only defend the family but bringing him face to face with an old foe and giving him one more chance to reconcile his past. The body count rises as Alexander returns to what he does best - killing. But will it be enough for Alexander to find redemption?
Cesar Romero gives a memorable performance as a Soho club owner who romances Kay Kendall's unhappily married society girl in this taut Brit-noir thriller from the early 1950s. With impressive supporting performances from Egypt-born femme fatale Simone Silva and noted British character actor Victor Maddern, Street of Shadows is featured here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements in its original theatrical aspect ratio.Luigi, the owner of a Soho pinball club, falls for Barbara, a beautiful socialite whose husband is a compulsive gambler. As their romance blossoms Luigi finds his former girlfriend murdered with the evidence pointing in Barbara's direction! Under suspicion and on the run, he must find someone to help him before his luck runs out for good...
Franklin J Schaffner's Papillon is quite possibly the definitive prison escape drama. Not as thrilling as The Great Escape, nor as emotionally cathartic as The Shawshank Redemption, its unflinching emphasis on the barbarism of "civilised" societies is nevertheless unparalleled. Significantly, the only characters to display any real kindness in this film are the social outcasts: the lepers and native Indians; everyone else has been corrupted and debased by the true villain, the penal system itself. Based on Henri Charrière' s heavily fictionalised "autobiography", the film's timeless themes of man's insatiable desire for freedom and the indomitability of the human spirit are thankfully not dependent for their impact on the source material's veracity. Dalton Trumbo's liberal-minded screenplay echoes the themes of his earlier script for Spartacus, and Schaffner's innate gift for epic cinema (this was made just two years after his great war biography Patton) is fully equal to the task of realising it on screen. The director's painterly eye for widescreen composition and his careful pacing impart a gravitas to proceedings even during the film's most squalid depictions of brutality, of which there are many emphasising the cheapness of human life among the convicts and their equally criminal prison guards in the penal colony of French Guiana. Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman form a remarkable screen pairing, with Hoffman outstanding as the pusillanimous Dega. McQueen magnificently overcomes his tough-guy persona in the extraordinary solitary confinement sequences as he is gradually reduced to a shambling, cockroach-eating wreck. Longtime collaborator Jerry Goldsmith, who had previously scored Schaffner's Planet of the Apes and Patton, attained yet another career high with his music. On the DVD: The anamorphic widescreen print of the original Panavision 2. 35:1 ratio looks fine without being as stunning as some more modern prints; the Dolby 5.1 audio does however do great service to Jerry Goldsmith's score, which can also be selected separately from the Audio Setup menu as an isolated track (note that there's no music at all in the first 20 minutes of the film). The 12-minute "Magnificent Rebel" featurette was made at the time of the film's release , and includes some fascinating footage of Henri Charrière touring the prison se t, reminiscing about his experiences and pontificating ("Society does not want free men, society wants conditioned men"). --Mark Walker
"Now you see it. You're amazed. You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's horrible, but you can't look away. There's no chance for you. No escape. You're helpless, helpless. There's just one chance, if you can scream. Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, scream for your life!" And scream Fay Wray does most famously in this monster classic, one of the greatest adventure films of all time, which even in an era of computer-generated wizardry remains a marvel of stop-motion animation. Robert Armstrong stars as famed adventurer Carl Denham, who is leading a "crazy voyage" to a mysterious, uncharted island to photograph "something monstrous ... neither beast nor man." Also aboard is waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Bruce Cabot as big lug John Driscoll, the ship's first mate. King Kong's first half-hour is steady going, with engagingly corny dialogue ("Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy") and ominous portent that sets the stage for the horror to come. Once our heroes reach Skull Island, the movie comes to roaring, chest-thumping, T. rex-slamming, snake-throttling, pterodactyl-tearing, native-stomping life. King Kong was ranked by the American Film Institute as among the 50 best films of the 20th century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the movies' most indelible and iconic images. --Donald Liebenson
Chile's Atacama Desert is the driest place on earth. Atop its mountains, astronomers gather to observe the stars. The sky is so translucent they can see right to the boundaries of the universe.It is also a place where the heat of the sun keeps human remains intact: those of Pre-Columbian mummies; 19th century explorers and miners; and the remains of political prisoners disappeared by the Chilean army after the military coup of September 1973. So while astronomers examine the most distant galaxies, at the foot of the mountains, surviving relatives of the 'disappeared', search for the remains of their loved ones, to reclaim their families' histories.Gradually the celestial quest of the astronomers and the earthly one of the Chilean women come together.
When Bertha is orphaned she links up with a controversial leader of a union Big Bill Shelley. On the run from McCarthy type witch hunters who think Shelley is a 'red' they unwillingly become involved in underground crime escape from jail and ride boxcars on freight trains until the all powerful railroad bosses catch up with Shelley and take their revenge...
Three stories about the ordinary teddy bear who becomes SuperTed when a spotty man from outer space brings him to life with cosmic dust... Episode titles: Trouble In Space (Part 1) Trouble In Space (Part 2) Superted's Dream.
Touted as the next great family drama, "Brothers And Sisters" explores the highs and lows of The Walkers - a postmodern American family and their delicate relationships.
Trying to explain the cult appeal of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China to the uninitiated is no easy task. The plot in a nutshell follows lorry driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) into San Francisco's Chinatown, where he's embroiled in street gang warfare over the mythical/magical intentions of would-be god David Lo Pan. There are wire-fu fight scenes, a floating eyeball and monsters from other dimensions. Quite simply it belongs to a genre of its own. Carpenter was drawing on years of chop-socky Eastern cinema tradition, which, at the time of the film's first release in 1986, was regrettably lost on a general audience. Predictably, it bombed. But now that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have made it big in the West, and Hong Kong cinema has spread its influence across Hollywood, it's much, much easier to enjoy this film's happy-go-lucky cocktail of influences. Russell's cocky anti-hero is easy to cheer on as he "experiences some very unreasonable things" blundering from one fight to another, and lusts after the gorgeously green-eyed Kim Cattrall. The script is peppered with countless memorable lines, too ("It's all in the reflexes"). Originally outlined as a sequel to the equally obscure Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Big Trouble is a bona fide cult cinema delight. Jack sums up the day's reactions perfectly, "China is here? I don't even know what the Hell that means!". On the DVD: Big Trouble in Little China is released as a special edition two-disc set in its full unedited form. Some real effort has been put into both discs' animated menus, and the film itself is terrific in 2.35:1 and 5.1 (or DTS). The commentary by Carpenter and Russell may not be as fresh as their chat on The Thing, but clearly they both retain an enormous affection for the film. There are eight deleted scenes (some of which are expansions of existing scenes), plus a separate extended ending which was edited out for the right reasons. You'll also find a seven-minute featurette from the time of release, a 13-minute interview with FX guru Richard Edlund, a gallery of 200 photos, 25 pages of production notes and magazine articles from American Cinematographer and Cinefex. Best of all for real entertainment value is a music video with Carpenter and crew (the Coupe de Villes) coping with video FX and 80s hair-dos.--Paul Tonks
Starring Nicholas Lyndhurst Goodnight Sweetheart became an instant hit with TV viewers of all ages as it charts the life of Gary Sparrow a dealer in memorabilia and antiques of WW2 who has miraculously discovered a portal in time which allows him to travel between the present and wartime Britain. This handy little trick obviously adds to the success of his business but the complications that it adds to Gary's love life are a different matter! Episodes comprise: 1. A Room With A Vie
Wild Strawberries (1957): The film that catapulted Ingmar Bergman to the forefront of world cinema is the director's richest most humane movie. Traveling to receive an honorary degree professor Isak Borg (masterfully played by the veteran Swedish director Victor Sjostrom) is forced to face his past come to terms with his faults and accept his approaching death. Through flashbacks and fantasies dreams and nightmares Wild Strawberries captures a startling voyage of self-dis
Determined 15-year-old Lara (Victor Polster) is committed to becoming a professional ballerina. With the support of her father, she throws herself into this quest for the absolute at a new school. Lara's adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she realises her body does not bend so easily to the strict discipline because she was born a boy. Camera d'Or for best first feature and Queer Palm at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. London Film Festival's First Feature Competition Winner 2018.
Doctor Dolittle Betty Thomas directs and Eddie Murphy stars in Doctor Dolittle, the 1998 hit film which, while ostensibly aimed at children, has a high quotient of hip and even mildly gross humour. Murphy stars as John Dolittle, whom we see as a child talking to a neighbourhood dog who explains that the reason mutts sniff each others' butts is to assess their characters when first meeting them. Little John promptly tries this out on being introduced to his school principal. Warned off such social eccentricity, Dolittle stops talking to animals and as an adult becomes a respectable doctor running his own medical practice--until a bump on the head revives his capacity to understand animals, whereupon mayhem, mortification and a menagerie of needy and freeloading creatures are heaped upon his ordered existence. Murphy plays it relatively straight. It's the animals, some of them vividly enhanced by Jim Henson's animating team, who provide the real laughs here, and a thoroughly worldly, wisecracking bunch of characters they prove to be. There's a couple of hard-boiled, squabbling rats, a pigeon who complains of impotence, Rocky the guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock) with a neat line in hip backchat, while Albert Brooks voices the gruff, melancholy tiger whose life Dolittle must try to save. A sweet but by no means saccharine comedy. --David Stubbs Dr Dolittle 2It's only a marginal improvement, but Dr Dolittle 2 defies the odds by rising above its popular 1998 predecessor (and once again, let's not confuse these movies with the earlier Rex Harrison musical). Eddie Murphy plays the title role with ease and with the confident professionalism of a comedian who knows when to share the spotlight--especially when he's being upstaged by a bunch of animals who steal all the punch lines. And once again the film is aimed at a pre-teen audience: so many of those punch lines involve flatulence, bodily functions and frequent use of the word "butt". The difference this time is that Dr Dolittle has settled into his talk-to-the-animals routine; his 16-year-old daughter (Raven-Symone) is getting to be a feisty handful (it turns out she's coping with a hereditary gift); and his lawyer wife (Kristen Wilson) is representing him in a trial against corporate villains who want to clear-cut a local forest. Naturally, the local critter mafia (their Don is a beaver... fuggeddaboudit!) want Dolittle to fight for their cause, and this involves the successful mating of an endangered bear and a domesticated circus bear who's forgotten all the bear necessities of life in the wild. The bears are voiced by Lisa Kudrow and Steve Zahn and they almost steal the show, but the whole menagerie (with digitally animated "talking") is equally amusing. Adults might wish that the filmmakers had tried harder to make a truly memorable sequel, but this is a movie for kids, and they're going to love it without quibbling. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
A reindeer doesn't have to fly to be magical to someone, and Prancer proves the point in an unassuming and plainspoken way. This 1989 family film stars Rebecca Harrell as nine-year-old Jessica, a motherless schoolgirl raised (and largely ignored) by her bereaved and embittered father (Sam Elliot), an apple farmer. While Jessica's dad struggles to keep food on the family table, the little heroine worries over the fate of a wounded reindeer she meets and wistfully identifies as a member of Santa's sled crew. The story may sound overly precious, but the film is grittier and more realistic than that. Far more concerned with wobbly family relationships than gilded escapism, Prancer is a rare family film that can entertain without invoking fluffy enchantment. It was followed 12 years later by a sequel, Prancer Returns. --Tom Keogh
""Rich! Deliciously eccentric! [A] brazen irrepressible original!"" -The New York Times. ""Lovely! Poignant!"" (The Wall Street Journal) and laugh-out-loud funny Shadows and Fog confirms Woody Allen's ""genius"" with its brilliant portrait of the hopeless - but hilarious - tragicomedy of human existence. Boasting a dazzling ""galaxy of stars"" (Leonard Maltin) including Woody Allen Mia Farrow John Malkovich Madonna Donald Pleasence Lily Tomlin Jodie Foster Kathy Bates John Cusack
This new chapter of Wrong Turn takes you to the most terrifying place of all - The Bloody Beginnings! An isolated sanatorium deep in the West Virginia wilderness is deserted after an inbred family of hillbilly cannibals escape and take revenge on their captors. Decades later, a group of college students seek refuge in the now-abandoned hospital after a blizzard derails their plans for a weekend winter break. But when the students encounter the medical ward's most frightening former patients, their only choice is to fight back... or die trying!
Legally Blonde: Reese Witherspoon gives a glittering performance as Elle Woods the natural blonde sorority queen who enrolls at Harvard Law School. Expecting her boyfriend Warner Huntington III (Matthew Davis) to propose Elle is mortified when instead he says he needs somebody serious as his wife. When Elle discovers Warner's brother is engaged to a law student she discovers enrolling at Harvard might be the way to prove she is serious. She studies for the LSATs submits a v
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