Academy Award� winner Jeremy Irons returns as the savvy and scheming Pope Alexander in all ten episodes from the riveting third and final season of The Borgias. Beset by enemies at every turn, Alexander responds with an iron will to purge the Vatican of those disloyal to him. But as he struggles to establish the Papacy as a hereditary monarchy across the heart of Italy, his emboldened children have their own plans for seizing power: Cesare (Fran�ois Arnaud) is now a daring guerrilla da...
Director Neil Jordan's gothic outing is a unique excursion into horror.
An IRA film with a difference, Neil Jordan's The Crying Game takes the Anglo-Irish conflict as the starting point for a thoughtful, often poignant and sometimes humorous examination of gender and identity. Stephen Rea is the IRA volunteer who befriends a kidnapped British soldier (the gauche but likeable Forest Whitaker), then takes the questions of loyalty and instinct (the "frog and scorpion" fable) with him to London, where he falls for the dead man's girlfriend (the appealing Jaye Davidson). Love and terrorism are fused in a violent and suspenseful denouement, where truth manifests itself in an unexpected yet meaningful way. Miranda Richardson and Adrian Dunbar are persuasive as the IRA agents, and there are excellent cameos from Jim Broadbent as an East End barman and Tony Slattery as a property shark, all making the most of Jordan's stylish, Academy Award-winning script. Anne (Art of Noise) Dudley contributes a moodily atmospheric score, with three versions of "When a Man Loves a Woman" to point up the gender issue. On the DVD: The Crying Game comes to disc with a widescreen picture that reproduces adequately for an early 90s film. The soundtrack, though, has real presence. There are subtitles in English and Russian(!), though the theatrical trailer is hardly a major bonus. An interview or a commentary with Jordan, discussing the motivation behind the project, would really have benefited a film which cuts across genres so successfully as this. --Richard Whitehouse
A heartfelt epic from Irish director Neal Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with the Vampire), Michael Collins is the biography of the charismatic and controversial Irish rebel leader who led the fight for independence from Britain. Among the most beautiful and atmospherically photographed movies of the 1990s, Michael Collins is also a rich and intelligent study of the nature of politics and leadership: the IRA spokesman, full of fiery convictions, eventually gives way to the more mature negotiator who strives to reach a compromise solution and is politically undone in the process. Liam Neeson gives a grand and towering performance as Collins, but for all the character's legendary, heroic, or otherwise larger-than-life attributes, Jordan and Neeson also keep him human. This is sweeping historical filmmaking of the kind we haven't seen since the heyday of David Lean, but with Jordan's characteristic touches of complexity and ambivalence. --Jim Emerson
Aging aristocrat Peter Plunkett has managed to turn his ancestors remote Irish castle into a lacklustre bed and breakfast. But as the debt collectors start closing in and threaten to repossess his inheritance Peter must find a way to keep the family home from prying hands. In a ruse to draw in American Tourists Peter Plunkett advertises the hotel as the most haunted castle in Europe. Along with his faithful members of staff Peter makes a shambolic attempt at convincing a coach of holidaymakers that deathly apparitions roam the halls and corridors and banchees scream at the stroke of midnight. What Peter didn't expect was the appearance of several actual ghosts rising from the grave and becoming romantically involved with the guests. Directed By Neil Jordan (A Company Of Wolves Interview With The Vampire) High Spirits is a brilliantly whimsical entertaining spooky comedy featuring one of film legend Peter O Toole's funniest performances. Also starring Steve Guttenberg Daryl Hannah Liam Neeson Beverly D'Angelo and Jennifer Tilly.
Mona Lisa
THE END OF THE AFFAIR is a brilliant and powerful story of love, betrayal and sexual jealousy.
Anyone who has seen and loved Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves should feel right at home in his offbeat psychological thriller In Dreams. A sexy, very adult take on "Little Red Riding Hood", Wolves unreeled as a series of surreal fairy tales interwoven within the heated dreams of a young girl verging on womanhood. The film's patron saints were Freud and Jung (as sifted through Jordan's wickedly fertile imagination), and the duo is very much aboard for In Dreams as well. Here's a film that takes place entirely in dreamtime, where the dark, violent fantasies of Claire Cooper (Annette Bening)--wife, mother and illustrator of children's books--play out unpoliced by superego, conscience or society. On the face of it, Claire's a clairvoyant whose mind becomes more and more possessed by child-killer Vivian Thompson (Robert Downey Jr.). Cops and shrinks refuse to take her seriously until she loses her own daughter and much, much more. Tapping into weird images of her soulmate's childhood, when he was abused by a hateful mother in a house now submerged in a nearby reservoir, Claire comes closer and closer to her gender-shifting bad boy (and his latest victim). From start to finish, In Dreams dwells in hyper-reality. Whether leeched of or drenched in colour, slipping eerily through an underwater world, rushing madly toward catastrophe--every hallucinatory shot is saturated with menace. It's the kind of potent, unresolved menace that haunts your waking day after a particularly unsettling nightmare. Watch this gorgeous film through Claire's mind, where she and her murderous doppelganger act out a terrible Oedipal drama driven by sex and jealousy. Bening and Downey deliver superb, risky performances, and Darius Khondji's cinematography, with almost every frame punctuated by blood-reds, is sensuously dreamlike. In Dreams is one of those great, flawed films that reaches for more than it ultimately achieves. --Kathleen Murphy, Amazon.com
ONDINE is a story of love, hope and the unwavering belief in the impossible. Starring Colin Farrell and Alicja Bachleda
Jodie Foster stars as a grieving woman determined to track down the men behind her fiance's murder, whatever the cost.
The Showtime Original Series The Borgias is the sordid saga of one of the most remarkable and legendary families in history. Set in 15th century Italy at the height of the Renaissance, The Borgias chronicles the corrupt rise of patriarch Rodrigo Borgia (Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons) to the papacy, where he proceeds to commit every sin in the book to amass and retain power, influence and enormous wealth for himself and his family. The unbounded audacity of this original crime family went on to inspire Machiavelli's The Prince and Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Don't miss a minute of the lavish, sexy, scandalous drama from the creative mind of Academy Award winner Neil Jordan.
When it was announced that Tom Cruise would play the vampire Lestat in this adaptation of Anne Rice's bestselling novel, even Rice chimed in with a highly publicised objection. The author wisely and justifiably recanted her negative opinion when she saw Cruise's excellent performance, which perceptively addresses the pain and chronic melancholy that plagues anyone cursed with immortal bloodlust. Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst are equally good at maintaining the dark and brooding tone of Rice's novel. And in this rare mainstream project for a major studio, director Neil Jordan compensates for a lumbering plot by honouring the literate, Romantic qualities of Rice's screenplay. Considered a disappointment while being embraced by Rice's loyal followers, Interview with the Vampire is too slow to be a satisfying thriller, but it is definitely one of the most lavish, intelligent horror films ever made. --Jeff Shannon
Fascinating and imaginative The Company Of Wolves, directed by Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, Interview with a Vampire) brings together the timeless Little Red Riding Hood and werewolf fables with a haunting, compelling, eerie and erotic difference. This movie is a magical bag of symbolic folklore about werewolves or rather their sexual connotation. Grandmother Angela Lansbury tells her granddaughter Sarah Patterson, disturbing tales about innocent maidens falling in love with handsome...
When Neil Jordan is really on his game, as he is with The Good Thief, his directorial skill is a marvel to behold. In the character-driven mode of Jordan's Mona Lisa and The Crying Game, this smooth, underrated caper provides an abundance of cinematic riches, not the least being Jordan's peerless knack for dialogue and a tailor-made role for Nick Nolte. For better or worse, Nolte's off-screen drug abuse served him well in portraying Bob Montagnet, ace thief, recovering heroin addict, and beloved denizen of the French Riviera, where his luck is about to take some very clever turns. The elegant plot is yours to discover; in loosely remaking the French classic Bob le Flambeur, Jordan crafts what one reviewer aptly called "the underbelly of Ocean's Eleven", involving an impenetrable vault full of priceless art, a rescued Russian prostitute, an eccentric band of accomplices and high-stakes poker in Monte Carlo. Nolte is right at home in this rich-and-risky milieu and the combined talents of Jordan and ace cinematographer Chris Menges make The Good Thief a pleasure from start to finish. --Jeff Shannon
Neil Jordan's dark, romantic Mona Lisa stars Bob Hoskins as a tough but lovable thug. Just out of prison, he's given a job by his old boss (Michael Caine) as chauffeur to a gorgeous but chilly call-girl (Cathy Tyson). For all his criminal experience, this guy is surprisingly innocent; when he develops a crush on the woman he's driving, it leads inevitably to tragedy. Hoskins is heartbreakingly good as this poor thick sod, while Caine projects an oily malevolence. Tyson is also fine as a woman who has secrets of her own. --Marshall Fine
Stardust: A young man named Tristan tries to win the heart of Victoria the beautiful but cold object of his desire by going on a quest to retrieve a fallen star. His journey takes him to a mysterious and forbidden land beyond the walls of his village. On his odyssey Tristan finds the star which has transformed into a striking girl named Yvaine. However Tristan is not the only one seeking the star. A king's four living sons - not to mention the ghosts of their three dead brothers - all need the star as they vie for the throne. Tristan must also overcome the evil witch Lamia who needs the star to make her young again. As Tristan battles to survive these threats encountering a pirate named Captain Shakespeare and a shady trader named Ferdy the Fence along the way his quest changes. He must now win the heart of the star for himself as he discovers the meaning of true love. Ondine: Ondine is a lyrical modern fairy tale that tells the story of Syracuse (Colin Farrell) an Irish fisherman whose life is transformed when he catches a beautiful and mysterious woman (Alicja Bachleda) in his nets. His daughter Annie (Alison Barry) comes to believe that the woman is a magical creature while Syracuse falls helplessly in love. However like all fairy tales enchantment and darkness go hand in hand.
When it was announced that Tom Cruise would play the vampire Lestat in this adaptation of Anne Rice's bestselling novel, even Rice chimed in with a highly publicised objection. The author wisely and justifiably recanted her negative opinion when she saw Cruise's excellent performance, which perceptively addresses the pain and chronic melancholy that plagues anyone cursed with immortal bloodlust. Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst are equally good at maintaining the dark and brooding tone of Rice's novel. And in this rare mainstream project for a major studio, director Neil Jordan compensates for a lumbering plot by honouring the literate, Romantic qualities of Rice's screenplay. Considered a disappointment while being embraced by Rice's loyal followers, Interview with the Vampire is too slow to be a satisfying thriller, but it is definitely one of the most lavish, intelligent horror films ever made. --Jeff Shannon
The Long Good Friday (Dir. John MacKenzie 1981): In the savage and deadly world of the gangland king the man at the top is ruler only for as long as he controls everything in his territory. For that man the rewards can be infinite but so are the dangers. Harold Shand is enjoying the height of his powers and he is on the verge of something that would make his current 'arrangements' small fry. But stronger forces than even he can control have moved in and taken over. Climaxing in one long and bloody day of terror an Easter Good Friday he is to see his empire begin to crack and crumble. Mona Lisa (Dir. Neil Jordan 1981): Love is a weakness to be exploited and betrayed. Starring Bob Hoskins Michael Caine and Cathy Tyson 'Mona Lisa' is a classic drama written and directed by Neil Jordan about a driver (Hoskins) who falls for his employer - high-class prostitute Simone (Tyson). The DVD includes interviews and a commentary with Bob Hoskins and Neil Jordan the original theatrical trailer subtitles for the hearing impaired and much more!
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
Director Neil Jordan's gothic outing is a unique excursion into horror.
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