By any rational measure, Alan Parker's cinematic interpretation of Pink Floyd's The Wall is a glorious failure. Glorious because its imagery is hypnotically striking, frequently resonant and superbly photographed by the gifted cinematographer Peter Biziou. And a failure because the entire exercise is hopelessly dour, loyal to the bleak themes and psychological torment of Roger Waters' great musical opus, and yet utterly devoid of the humour that Waters certainly found in his own material. Any attempt to visualise The Wall would be fraught with artistic danger, and Parker succumbs to his own self-importance, creating a film that's as fascinating as it is flawed. The film is, for better and worse, the fruit of three artists in conflict--Parker indulging himself, and Waters in league with designer Gerald Scarfe, whose brilliant animated sequences suggest that he should have directed and animated this film in its entirety. Fortunately, this clash of talent and ego does not prevent The Wall from being a mesmerising film. Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof (in his screen debut) is a fine choice to play Waters's alter ego--an alienated, "comfortably numb" rock star whose psychosis manifests itself as an emotional (and symbolically physical) wall between himself and the cold, cruel world. Weaving Waters's autobiographical details into his own jumbled vision, Parker ultimately fails to combine a narrative thread with experimental structure. It's a rich, bizarre, and often astonishing film that will continue to draw a following, but the real source of genius remains the music of Roger Waters. --Jeff Shannon
Hailed by critics as a masterpiece Casualties of War is based on the true story of a squad of soldiers caught in the moral quagmire of wartime Vietnam. Witness to a vile crime Private Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is forced to stand alone against his fellow soldiers and commanding officer Sergeant Meserve (Sean Penn). A powerful and charismatic man pushed over the edge of barbarism by the terror and brutality of combat. With sweeping scope action and raw power master filmmaker Brian De Palma creates a devastating and unforgettable tale of one man's quest for sanity and justice amidst the chaos of war.
Bedpan humour rules in Carry On Doctor, the vintage 1968 offering from gang, assisted by guest star Frankie Howerd as bogus faith healer Francis Bigger. Hospitals, of course, always provided the Carry On producers with plenty of material. Today, these comedies induce a twinge of serious nostalgia for the great days of the National Health Service when Matron (Hattie Jacques, naturally) ran the hospital as if it was a house of correction, medical professionals were idolised as if they were all Doctor Kildare and Accident and Emergency Departments were deserted oases of calm. But even if you aren't interested in a history lesson, Talbot Rothwell's script contains some immortal dialogue, particularly when Matron loosens her stays. "You may not realise it but I was once a weak man", says Kenneth Williams' terrified Doctor Tinkle to Hattie Jacques. "Once a week's enough for any man", she purrs back. Other highlights include Joan Sims, excellent as Frankie Howerd's deaf, bespectacled sidekick, Charles Hawtrey suffering from a phantom pregnancy, 1960s singer Anita Harris in a rare film role, and Barbara Windsor at her most irrepressible as nurse Sandra May. --Piers Ford
Four different perspectives of a train disaster are told through a quartet of short stories.
A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.
A hilarious romp through the bars and bedrooms of the Wild West with the Carry On gang! Sid James is on top form as the Rumpo Kid an outlaw who shakes up the sleepy residents of Stodge City. Kenneth Williams is the puritanical judge and Jim Dale plays Marshall P. Knutt a hapless plumber mistakenly sent to clean up the town. This is classic Carry On with a full cast of Carry On favourites including Charles Hawtrey as the firewater-guzzling Chief Big Heap Joan Sims and Bernard Bresslaw. Special Features: Audio Commentary Trailer
Pete's Dragon Live Action: When a mysterious 10-year-old boy, Pete, turns up, claiming to live in the woods with a giant green dragon, it's up to a forest ranger, Grace, and young Natalie to learn where the boy came from, where he belongs, and the truth about this magical dragon. Pete's Dragon Animated: When an orphan named Pete and his best friend Elliott an invisible dragon! wander into the seaside village of Passamaquoddy, the townspeople think he is behind the hilarious accidents that keep happening. But after a daring rescue, everyone starts to believe in Pete's fi re-breathing buddy. Bonus Content: Pete's Dragon Animated: Brazzle Dazzle Effects: Behind Disney's Movie Magic Deleted Storyboard Sequence: Terminus & Hoagy Hunt Elliott Original Song Concept: Boo Bop Bopbop Bop (I Love You, Too) Where's Elliott? The Disappearing Dragon Game And More
Sometimes dead is better... For most families moving is a new beginning. But for the Creeds it could be the beginning of the end. Because they've just moved in next door to a place that children built with broken dreams the Pet Sematary. It's a tiny patch of land that hides a mysterious Indian burial ground with the powers of resurrection. Master Of The Macabre Stephen King will take you and the Creeds to hell and back. (But the Creeds don't have return tickets.) Your tour gui
In Carry On Follow That Camel, Sergeant Bilko himself, Phil Silvers, lends lustre and trademark spectacles to this 1967 desert spectacle following the adventures of a group of foreign legionnaires who find themselves besieged by a bloodthirsty band of Bedouins. Silvers plays Sergeant Nocker, a rogue cast firmly in the Bilko mould, who takes a dislike to new recruit Jim Dale, a young upper class gent forced to join the legion following disgrace at a cricket match. He's accompanied, naturally, by his faithful manservant (Peter Butterworth), with the pair showing a fine disregard for the austere requirements of the Foreign Legion. However, once they reach an agreement with Sergeant Nocker, they can join forces to repel the Bedouins, led, not unpredictably, by Bernard Bresslaw. This is vintage Carry On, in spite of Sid James' absence. Kenneth Williams' performance is subdued by having to deliver the usual puns ("zere are a couple of points I still need to go over", he informs busty Joan Sims) in a mangled French accent but Silvers gets into the right mode of delivering broad comedy with subtle inflections. Peter Butterworth draws the short straw this time and must feature in the obligatory cross-dressing scene, while Charles Hawtrey is a splendidly unconvincing hardened legionnaire. As for Bresslaw, can any other British actor, with the exception of Sir Alec Guinness, have distinguished himself in such a variety of multi-ethnic roles? On the DVD: Sadly, there are no extra features except scene selection. The picture ratio is 4:3. --David Stubbs
Disney is proud to present the second heartwarming and hilarious sequel to the popular family favorite Air Bud! Buddy masters two new starring roles... soccer player and father. 'Air Bud: World Pup' is loaded with laughs and cool soccer action as Buddy teams up alongside U.S. women's soccer greats Brandi Chastain Briana Scurry and Tisha Venturini meanwhile keeping a protective eye over his adorable new family of soccer-playing puppies!
Carry On Don't Lose Your Head parodies the adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel, with crinkly cackling Sid James as master of disguise the Black Fingernail and Jim Dale as his assistant Lord Darcy. He must rescue preposterously effete aristocrat Charles Hawtrey from the clutches of Kenneth Williams' fiendish Citizen Camembert and his sidekick Citizen Bidet (Peter Butterworth). The Black Fingernail is assisted in his efforts to thwart the birth of the burgeoning republic by the almost supernatural stupidity of his opponents, who fail to recognise the frankly undisguisable Sid James even when dressed as a flirty young woman. What with an executioner who is tricked into beheading himself in order to prove the efficacy of his own guillotine, it's all a little too easy. As usual, no groan-worthy pun is left unturned, or unheralded by the soundtrack strains of a long whistle or wah-wah trumpet. This is pretty silly stuff even by Carry On standards, with most of the cast barely required to come out of first gear and an overlong climactic swordfight sequence hardly raising the dramatic stakes. Most of the humour here resides neither in the script nor the characterisation but in the endlessly watchable Williams' whooping, nasal delivery (occasionally lapsing into broad Cockney) and the jowl movements of the always-underrated Butterworth. --David Stubbs
Obsessive scientist Dr. Pretorious and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast have invented 'The Resonator'. A device intended to stimulate the brain's Pineal gland and expand the powers of the mind. The machine gives them more than they bargained for however when a parallel universe inhibited by slimy creatures ready to prey on humans reveals itself. Pretorious meets a sticky end and returns as a grotesque, deformed being and all manner of depravity ensues. Special Features: Stuart Gordon on From Beyond. Gothic Adaptation: An Interview with writer Dennis Paoli. The Doctors is in: An Interview with Barbara Crampton. Monsters and Slime: The FX of From Beyond. Directors Perspective. The Editing room: Lost and Found. An Interview with the Composer. Commentary with Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Jeffrey Combs. A Photo montage. Storyboard to film comparison.
Unsurprising attracting awards attention, The Pacific is a ten-part series set in the midst of World War II, that follows the actions of three US Marines In the Pacific Theatre Of War. Its a series not a million miles away from its spiritual predecessor, Band Of Brothers, which is understandable given the crossover of creative talent. Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. Its absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength. All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work thatd put many blockbuster movies to shame, Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster
Stripped to the bare essentials, and the antithesis of Pink Floyd's epic live performances, David Gilmour in Concert is a low-key, classy affair. Using footage from 2001's Meltdown Concert and his Royal Festival Hall show in 2002, Gilmour performs a mix of solo compositions and Floyd classics. Opening with a lengthy acoustic version of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", the show gradually gathers momentum as "Fat Old Sun" and "High Hopes" are tackled. Other legends such as Richard Wright and Bob Geldof make guest appearances, with Geldof providing complementary vocals for the second live version of "Comfortably Numb" featured. "Shine On" is also reprised mid-way, this time with added backing band, choir and electric guitar. Resembling more a classical than a rock concert, the audience attentively soak up Gilmour's performance, politely clapping at the right moments and never doing anything as undignified as standing up (although there are the occasional cat-calls). It's an excellent live recording that should appeal to all Gilmour's fans. On the DVD: David Gilmour in Concert on disc enhances the exclusivity and quality of the performances with crisp 5.1 surround (an ordinary stereo soundtrack is also available) and an anamorphically enhanced picture. --John Galilee
Obsessive scientist Dr. Pretorious and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast have invented 'The Resonator'. A device intended to stimulate the brain's Pineal gland and expand the powers of the mind. The machine gives them more than they bargained for however when a parallel universe inhibited by slimy creatures ready to prey on humans reveals itself. Pretorious meets a sticky end and returns as a grotesque, deformed being and all manner of depravity ensues. Special Features: Stuart Gordon on From Beyond. Gothic Adaptation: An Interview with writer Dennis Paoli. The Doctors is in: An Interview with Barbara Crampton. Monsters and Slime: The FX of From Beyond. Directors Perspective. The Editing room: Lost and Found. An Interview with the Composer. Commentary with Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna and Jeffrey Combs. A Photo montage. Storyboard to film comparison.
Unsurprising attracting awards attention, The Pacific is a ten-part series set in the midst of World War II, that follows the actions of three US Marines In the Pacific Theatre Of War. Its a series not a million miles away from its spiritual predecessor, Band Of Brothers, which is understandable given the crossover of creative talent. Yet The Pacific is still a show with an identity of its own. It boasts the same sky-high production values of Band Of Brothers, but it also has a broader canvas, and a slightly slower pace to it. Its absorbing drama, though, and the standard of it is kept high right throughout the ten-episode run. During that time, it takes in many key events of the time, and presents them with staggering confidence and strength. All of this, of course, makes you hope that the high definition transfer can do all of this justice. Fortunately, the news here is good. Few television shows have been treated to anywhere near the love that The Pacific has been in its 1080p transfer, and matched by surround sound work thatd put many blockbuster movies to shame, Is it Band Of Brothers 2? Absolutely not. Instead, The Pacific is a wonderful drama series in its own right, and one well worth picking up. --Jon Foster
Featuring: 1. The Big Job (1965) 2. The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) 3. Make Mine A Million (1959)
Few monsters lend themselves better to allegory than the zombie. In the years since George Romero first set the shambling mold with Night of the Living Dead, filmmakers have been using the undead as handy substitutes for concepts as varied as mall-walking consumers, punk rockers, soccer hooligans, and every political movement imaginable. (All this, plus brain chomping.) World War Z, the mega-scale adaptation of Max Brooks's richly detailed faux-historical novel, presents a zombie apocalypse on a ginormous level never seen before on film. Somehow, however, the sheer size of the scenario, coupled with a distinct lack of visceral explicitness, ends up blunting much of the metaphoric impact. While the globe-hopping action certainly doesn't want for spectacle, viewers may find themselves wishing there was something more to, you know, chew on. Director Marc Forster and his team of screenwriters (including J. Michael Straczynski and Lost's Damon Lindelof) have kept the basic gist of the source material, in which an unexplained outbreak results in a rapidly growing army of the undead. Unlike the novel's sprawling collection of unrelated narrators, however, the film streamlines the plot, following a retired United Nations investigator (Brad Pitt) who must leave his family behind in order to seek out the origins of the outbreak. While the introduction of a central character does help connect some of Brooks's cooler ideas, it also has the curious effect of narrowing the global scale of the crisis. By the time of the third act, in which Pitt finds himself under siege in a confined space, the once epic scope has decelerated into something virtually indistinguishable from any other zombie movie. Even if it's not a genre changer, though, World War Z still has plenty to distinguish itself, including a number of well-orchestrated set pieces--this is a movie that will never be shown on airplanes--and the performances, with Pitt's gradually eroding calm strengthened by a crew of supporting actors (including Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale, and a fantastically loony David Morse) who manage to make a large impression in limited time. Most importantly, it's got those tremendous early scenes of zombie apocalypse, which display a level of frenetic chaos that's somehow both over-the-top and eerily plausible. When the fleet-footed ghouls start dogpiling en masse, even the most level-headed viewer may find themselves checking the locks and heading for the basement. --Andrew Wright
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