Tokyo is the city where the final battle between the Dragon of Earth and the Dragon of Heaven will take place in the Japanese anime film X, directed by Taro Rin and written by the all-woman writing team Clamp. The Dragon of Earth wants to wipe out humankind because of the damage people have inflicted on the Earth, while the Dragon of Heaven is fighting to protect civilisation. At the centre of all this is Kamui, the chosen one, who must pick a dragon to fight for.Full of dreams and flashbacks that pop up out of nowhere, the structure of X could be considered confusing and needlessly complex if the story weren't so simple. Obviously, we are supposed to root for the Dragon of Heaven to win and save mankind, but the funny thing is, the Dragon of Earth has the better argument. If it were a debate, humanity would lose. But it's not a debate, it's an action film, and many of Tokyo's most famous buildings get destroyed in the battles. As with most anime, the women are either girlishly cute or slutty, but luckily in X, there are no graphic rapes; the love interest is merely crucified three or four times. It may not be the greatest anime film out there, but at least it's never boring. --Andy Spletzer
SHE is the beautiful warrior-queen who rules by the sword in a land wasted by atomic holocaust. Women battle men are used for ritual sex and sacrifice but the arrival of three strangers plunges SHE into a nightmare quest for survival. Together SHE and her ill-matched companions cross the forest of Yellow Death to encounter a tribe of innocents by day and man eating werewolvers by night and the invincible sailor who literally multiplies when attacked. They make a last stand on B
The aftermath of a police killing of a black man, told through the eyes of the bystander who filmed the act, an African-American police officer and a high-school baseball phenom inspired to take a stand.
Only true legends of rock music are known by one word. As with ˜Elvis' everyone knows the name of the most creative and influential rock artist of all time: BOWIE. Whereas other artists remained constant in appearance, or gradually evolved their musical style, Bowie was in a state of permanent revolution: constantly re-inventing his persona and sound. From the 1960's mixture of psychedelia meets fantasy for Space Oddity, through to the ground-breaking, Ziggy Stardust, Bowie defied any label that the music industry tried to place on him. From Thin White Duke to soulful rocker; music, art, fashion and sexuality were Bowie's playthings - he was truly an artistic chameleon. Born David Jones in January 1947 he recreated himself as David Bowie, in 1966. For the next fifty years Bowie would carve out one of the most individual careers in music, film and the arts. Featuring contributions from those who collaborated with him and archive interviews with the great man himself, BOWIE is a fascinating exploration of the life and inspiration of a true rock and roll icon who inspired a whole generation to become heroes. First ever DVD release in the UK Full length feature on one of the world's most influential rock artists New interviews shot in HD with Bowie's collaborators and friends Produced by well-respected production company behind Billy Fury: The Sound of Fury
Tamara Jenkins' semi-autobiographical story follows a lower-middle-class teenager (Lyonne) and her neurotic family in 1976 Tinseltown...
For the life of him real estate agent Bob Carter (John Ritter) can't figure out why three of his listings are such a tough sell. Sure the homes have blood-soaked histories. True the owners are all dead or insane. But these are top-notch houses in turnkey condition ready to move in! However today Bob has a sure thing; a newlywed couple in search of the tract home of their dreams. The couple are delighted by what they see...until Bob tells them the fates of the previous owners. T
Performances of La Traviata stand or fall to an unusual extent on their principal soprano; the first thing that needs saying about this Glyndebourne performance is that Marie McLaughlin has all of the attributes needed for a role that is fundamentally a virtuoso one, no matter how emotionally involving it is as well. The point about Violetta is that she is, with absolute authenticity, all of the things she becomes in the course of the opera--the febrile socialite and yearning love of Act One, the quiet domesticated woman of Act Two who sacrifices her love for Alfredo to precisely the family values he has talked her into espousing, the dying penitent of Act Three. Walter McNeil is an impressive poetic Alfredo in whose successful courtship we can believe. He is also unusually good in Act Two, Scene Two where for once his public humiliation of Violetta is actually painful, which makes his repentance at her deathbed far more moving. Brent Ellis is solidly powerful as his father Germont--the duet in which he talks Violetta into renouncing his son and comes to value what he is destroying is one of the high points here, as it should be. Bernard Haitink conducts impressively. On the DVD: As (unfortunately) usual with Arthaus Musik, the DVD contains no extra features worth mentioning past the usual subtitles in German, English and French, relegating discussion of the opera's stormy history to the booklet. --Roz Kaveney
Inspector Jean Darblay (Stephanie Turner) faces a third series of challenging events in the town of Hartley... Episodes comprise: 1. Betrayals 2. Heat 3. Amenities 4. Amateur Night 5. A Breach Of The Peace 6. Family Ties 7. Nothing To Report 8. You Can Go Home Again 9. Past Lives 10. Cause For Complaint 11. Hartley's Midnight Cowboy 12. The Intruder 13. Misunderstandings 14. Where There's Muck...
Action-packed Season Three develops major characters and plot lines brewing over the last couple of years. The Mayor, this season's major baddie, wants to become an invincible demon by slaughtering everyone at Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony but he's going to torture them all by giving his speech first. Bad-girl vampire-slayer Faith wants to get one over on Buffy and becomes even more rotten. Angel comes back from hell but isn't sure what to do about his girlfriend. Willow meets her evil gay vampire duplicate from another dimension. Xander loses his virginity but still has to contemplate his essential uselessness. Cordelia gets less whiny and has to work in a dress-shop when her father becomes bankrupt. Giles wears tweed and drinks tea, though it is revealed that he used to be a warlock and in a punk band. Besides the soap opera, there are monsters, curses and vampires (inevitably). --Kim Newman On the DVD: The DVDs are presented in a standard television 4:3 picture ratio and in a clear Dolby sound that does full justice both to the sparkling dialogue and to the always impressive indie-rock and orchestral scores. Special features include an overview of Season Three by its creator Joss Whedon, and by writers Marti Noxon, David Fury, Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson and documentaries on the weapons, clothes special effects of the show and the speech/verbal tone which makes it what it is-"Buffyspeak". The episodes "Helpless", "Bad Girls", "Consequences" and "Earshot" have commentaries by, Fury, Petrie, director James Gershman and Espenson, in which we find out some fascinating details about the way the scripts mutate and about the particular illuminations added to scripts by actors' performances. After complaints about the Season 2 DVD packaging, the disc envelopes include a protective coating. --Roz Kaveney
Set Comprises: The DriverRyan O'Neal plays the driver - an ice-cool getaway ace for hire by whoever can afford his crash course skills. Bruce Dern is the detective - a man obsessed with arresting the speed demon at any cost... The Driver lures his foe into a deadly game of cross and double cross by leaving tantalising evidence at every heist until the vengeance-crazed Detective can stand no more and the film erupts into a frenzy of twisted metal and burning rubber. A 1970's classic from Walter Hill. Southern ComfortIt's the land of hospitality... unless you don't belong. A group of National Guardsmen embark on a routine weekend of manoeuvres in the boggy swamps of Louisiana. Everything goes smoothly until blanks are fired at the Cajun locals. Suddenly the men are hurled into a terrifying battle for their lives... An allegory of America's involvement in Vietnam in the tradition of Deliverance featuring brilliant cinematography and an excellent Ry Cooder bluegrass score. Extreme PrejudiceA Texas Ranger stands on one side of the border aimed at cleaning up the Mexican drug traffic. A ruthless narcotics kingpin who'll stop at nothing to get his way stands on the other. Friends since childhood now they are deadly adversaries. Johnny HandsomeJohnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) is a small time crook with a grotesquely deformed face. When thrown in prison for a crime he did not do he befriends a kind doctor (Forest Whitaker) who believes that Handsome would change his ways if he had a normal face. Handsome undergoes plastic surgery and reappears unrecognisable to anyone who knows him. When given parole it seems that Johnny plans to live a straight life... until the past catches up and shows that he only has one aim: to fullfil his revenge on the man who set him up. The Long Riders: The notorious James-Younger gang is the most famous group of outlaws in the country robbing banks trains and stage coaches with a sense of daring that makes them folk heroes throughout the land. But when the mighty Pinkerton detective agency swears to back them down these criminals must face an awesome enemy that will stop at nothing to see them behind bars... or dead! Only through the strength of their loyalty and blood ties can the outlaws hope to survive the brutal pursuits unexpected betrayals and blistering showdowns that mark the end of their dangerous ride. The Warriors: A battle of gigantic proportions is looming in the neon underground of New York City. The armies of the night number 100 000; they outnumber the police 5 to 1; and tonight they're after the Warriors - a street gang unfairly blamed for a rival gang leader's death. This contemporary action-adventure story takes place at night underground in the sub-culture of gang warfare that rages from the Bronx to Coney Island Bay as the Warriors desperately try to get back home. Members of the Warriors fight for their lives seek to survive in the urban jungle and learn the meaning of loyalty.
Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas. A drifter Randall Adams ran out of gas in Texas and was picked up by a 16-year-old runaway David Harris. Later that night they drank some beer smoked some marijuana and went to the movies. Then their stories diverge. Adams claims that he left for his motel where he was staying with his brother and went to sleep. Harris however says that they were stopped by police late that night and Adams suddenly shot the officer approaching their car. The film shows the evidence gathered by the police who were under extreme pressure to clear the case. It strongly makes a point that the circumstantial evidence was very flimsy. In fact it becomes apparent that Harris was a much more likely suspect and was in the middle of a 'crime spree ' eventually ending up on Death Row himself for the later commission of other crimes. Morris implies that the D.A.'s and judge's desire for the death penalty in this case (which Harris would have been ineligible for due to his youth) made Adams a scapegoat on which to pin this heinous crime.
Over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre in December 1983, filmmaker Jonathan Demme joined creative forces with cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth and Talking Heads ... and miracles occurred. Following a staging concept by singer-guitarist David Byrne, this euphoric concert film transcends that all-too-limited genre to become the greatest film of its kind. A guaranteed cure for anyone's blues, it's a celebration of music that never grows old, fuelled by the polyrhythmic pop-funk precision that was a Talking Heads trademark, and lit from within by the geeky supernova that is David Byrne. The staging--and Demme's filming of it--builds toward an orgasmic release of music, rising from the bare-stage simplicity of Byrne, accompanied only by a boom box on "Psycho Killer" to the ecstatic crescendo of "Burning Down the House", by which time the Heads and additional personnel have all arrived on stage for a performance that seems channelled from heaven for the purpose of universal uplift. (God bless Demme for avoiding shots of the luckiest audience in 80s pop history; its presence is acknowledged but not at the viewer's expense.) With the deliriously eccentric Byrne as ringleader (pausing mid-concert to emerge in his now-legendary oversized suit), this circus of musical pleasure defies the futility of reductive description; it begs to be experienced, felt in the heart, head and bones, and held there the way we hold on to cherished memories. On those three nights in December 1983, Talking Heads gave love, life, and joy in generous amounts that years cannot erode, and Demme captured this act of creative goodwill on film with minimalist artistic perfection. Stop Making Sense is an invitation to pleasure that will never wear out its welcome. --Jeff Shannon
You too can find true love!Just ask the thousands of happy couples brought together by Patti Stanger, TV matchmaker and CEO of the Millionaire's Club matchmaking service.Now Patti can help your marriage dreams come true with Married in a Year - her proven, 12-month action plan for finding love. With her expert knowledge and no-nonsense approach, Patti will motivate and guide you each step of the way.Your 12-Month Action Plan For Finding Love Includes:Dating Detox:Take a break to focus on yourself and what you wantMeeting Your Match:Put yourself out there to attract the right manRed Flags:When and how to move on from a losing relationshipNegotiating the Ring:Sealing the deal within a year!
A young man finds no luck in the Australian gold rush and drifts into petty crime. His life changes when he gets twelve years in an infamous prison.
When Freddie Dumay holds a glamorous party at her family's vineyards to announce the release of a fabulous new Merlot everything is going wonderfully. Until that is her business partner's wife Constance is found dead. But when Constance's distraught husband Thomas Shipman quickly sets up home with his mysterious French assistant Arabella Freddie realises that Constance's death may not be as innocent as first thought...
Spy satellite code name Iris One has been launched by the U.S. in a desperate attempt to curb the ruthless drug cartels and Delta Force is back in action attacking and destroying the stockpiles of illegal drugs wherever in the world they may be hidden. But when the Delta team wipes out a billion-dollar stash of cocaine belonging to Colombian drug lord Umberto Salvatore they've taken on more than they bargained for. At a gathering of crime lords in Italy Salvatore unveils a daring plot to bring the United States to its knees and he enlists the aid of the world's gangster elite to pull it off. Meanwhile Salvatore's men hijack the most sophisticated stealth submarine in the U.S. fleet the USS Roosevelt and rig the on-board missiles to fire if the sub is attacked. Delta Force is reassembled to take out Salvaltore and at all costs stop the submarine with its chemical weapons payload aimed at the United Nations building and an unsuspecting New York City. The clock is ticking the action is getting hotter and millions of lives are in the hands of a vicious madman...Delta Force is the only answer!
Morgan and Jason (Sean Astin and Mathew Lillard) are two of the most ineligible bachelors in town. Budding philosophers they pride themselves on their resistance to the female art of persuasion. Determined to maintain their single status they travel the California coast surfing philosophizing and washing dishes to earn their keep. When a good friend submits to the vows of matrimony the two truth-seekers reluctantly travel home for the wedding. While there Jason falls for an ol
John Lennon: Rare And Unseen
A renegade cop with an attitude is chosen by the FBI to transport a mob boss across country to testify against the Mafia. To stay alive he must remain one step ahead of the competition.
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