Directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets) It Always Rains On Sunday starring Googie Withers John McCallum Jack Warner is considered to be one of the greatest and most overlooked achievements of British 1940s cinema. The film was featured in Time Out's 100 Best British Films list as chosen by 150 film industry experts including Sam Mendes and Wes Anderson. Googie Withers stars as Rose Sandigate a Bethnal Green housewife whose Sunday is turned upside down by the re-appearance of an old flame who is now an escaped convict seeking protection from the police. A rare glimpse into life in London's East End post WWII It Always Rains On Sunday was Googie Withers' last film for Ealing Studios and due to her wonderful performance as a woman trapped in a claustrophobic domesticity it remains one of her best. Special Features: Coming in from the Rain: Elclusive Interviews with Film Historian Ian Christie Writer Ian Sinclair Producer Sean O'Connor and Director Terence Davies Locations Featurette with British Film Historian Richard Dacre Trailer Stills Gallery
An iconoclastic young man (Cary Grant) who's engaged to a snooty heiress (Doris Nolan) discovers he's really in love with his fiance's down-to-earth sister (Katharine Hepburn) in director George Cukor's stylish comedy...
Two siblings Eli and Nellie inherit the family pickle company. When Nellie meets up with the bachelor owner of a rival pickle company her brother Eli encourages the match making knowing that if all goes well he'll be free to pursue the finer things in life...
More fun more flames more flameouts more Gilmore. Featuring all 22 episodes of Gilmore Girls the hit series known for its witty rapid-fire dialogue and poignant storylines. For mother and daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore it's a year of change. Much of it is expected like Rory's graduation from Chilton and the anxiety of waiting for college acceptance letters. But much of it is not. Rory starts the year with two boyfriends (that may be two too many). Lorelai rekindles t
When Jimmy and his half Native American girlfriend Lily are murdered by a rampaging satanic cult led by Luc Crash and his demonic bride he is traumatised to find himself reincarnated as 'The Crow' an immortal being of Native American folk law and the 'killer of killers'. With revenge burning in his broken heart and whilst he tries to come to terms with his new dark powers Jimmy comes to realise what he can do and what he must do - as he confronts the onslaught of gang members Fam
It Happened One Night (1934) Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert team up for laughs as mismatched lovers in this 1934 screwball comedy classic. Spoiled Ellie Andrews (Colbert) escapes from her millionaire father (Walter Connolly) who wants to stop her from marrying a worthless playboy. En route to New York Ellie gets involved with an out-of-work newsman Peter Warne (Gable). When their bus breaks down the bickering couple set off on a madcap hitchhiking expedition. Peter hopes
Legendary producer-director Howard Hawks teams with two equally legendary stars, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum, in this classic Western drama. Mitchum plays to perfection an alcoholic but gutsy sheriff who relentlessly battles the dark side of the wild West, ruthless cattle barons and crooked businessmen. The Duke gives an equally adept performance as the sheriff's old friend who knows his way around a gunfight. Filled with brawling action and humor, El Dorado delivers the goods. James Caan and Ed Asner co-star.
A little drunk on its own arcane exotica as a gambling movie, Rounders is a film that takes us inside a world of high-stakes card players but falls short on such essentials as character development and relationships. Still, it is a real curiosity, written by a couple of guys (David Levien and Brian Koppelman) who appear to know something about the dark underbelly of card hustling for fun and profit. Matt Damon stars as a reluctant law student who can't put aside his subterranean career of playing poker and blackjack for big money. After he loses his post-grad nest egg to a weird Russian kingpin (John Malkovich)--and also loses his disgusted girlfriend (Gretchen Mol) in the process--Damon's character turns to an unreliable old buddy (Edward Norton) for a dangerous game of sharking wherever there happens to be a game underway: frat boys, cops, bad dudes, you name it. Norton appears to be living out every young actor's fantasy of re-creating Robert De Niro's prot! otypical head case in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, and while his performance is burdened by obvious quotation marks, his estimable talent still shines through. Damon's charm and intelligence bring some oomph to the curiously flat proceedings, and while his hushed, soul-bearing scenes with Martin Landau (as a law professor who takes a shine to the kid) seem gratuitous, they're still nice to watch. Behind all this is director John Dahl (Red Rock West), who is not exactly at the top of his game here but who brings his distinctive toughness to the crime-noir tone.--Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Anyone who was a child in the first half of the 1980s will be rushing out to buy Danger Mouse, a readymade time machine to transport you back to those halcyon days of coming home from school to collapse cross-legged in front of the TV. In each action-packed episodes, our righteous rodent triumphs time and again over his arch-nemesis Baron Silas Greenback--the world's most evil toad--battling off everything from aliens and monsters to exploding custard and runaway washing machines. As ever, each episode opens in Danger Mouse's hidden hideaway (located under a post box "somewhere in Mayfair"), the furry Secret Agent duly receiving his instructions from spluttering boss Colonel K. Then it's into the Mousemobile and out onto London's streets, as DM and his trusty sidekick Penfold set off to find their croaky foe and save the day. While the animation is basic and, at 20 minutes a pop, the stories have a tendency to lose momentum, the knowing wit and fabulous theme tune more than compensate. Much of the credit has to go to writer Mike Harding, who mercilessly mimics spy movie clichés until every last laugh is wrung out, but even more should go to David "Del Boy" Jason. Not content with simply voicing the eponymous hero, he also conjures up unrecognisable tones for Colonel K and two of Greenback's loyal hench-creatures, Nero and Count Duckula. And then there's his deliciously portentous voice-over, greeting each cross-cut with the obligatory "meanwhile . . .". An all-round must-buy, but with one important warning: don¹t expect to sleep once that signatory music starts whizzing round your head: "He's the greatest, he's fantastic, wherever there is trouble he's around. Danger Moooooouuuuseeee...". --Jamie Graham
When the Americans test a nuclear weapon at the South Pole at the exact moment that the Soviets are testing their own weapon at the North the earth's axis is jolted out of alignment causing catastrophic changes in global weather patterns. Additionally the earth has been dislodged from its orbit and is now hurtling towards the sun. It's a race against time as the world prepares for additional nuclear detonations which could restore life as we know it.
A sophisticated supernatural Hollywood comedy whose influence continues to be felt, Here Comes Mr. Jordan stars the eminently versatile Robert Montgomery as a working-class boxer and amateur aviator whose plane crashes in a freak accident. He finds himself in heaven but is told, by a wry angel named Mr. Jordan (Claude Rains), that his death was a clerical error, and that he can return to earth by entering the body of a corrupt (and about-to-be-murdered) bankerwhose soul could use a transplant. Having inspired a sequel with Rita Hayworth and two remakes (the first starring Warren Beatty and the second Chris Rock), Alexander Hall's effervescent Here Comes Mr. Jordan is comic perfection. Special Features: New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack New conversation between critic Michael Sragow and independent filmmaker Michael Schlesinger Audio interview from 1991 in which actor Elizabeth Montgomery discusses her father, actor Robert Montgomery Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Here Comes Mr. Jordan from 1942 starring Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Evelyn Keyes, and James Gleason Trailer PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme Click Images to Enlarge
A Disney "classic" that actually is a classic, Dumbo should be part of your video collection whether or not you have children. The storytelling was never as lean as in Dumbo, the songs rarely as haunting (or just plain weird), the characters rarely so well defined. The film pits the "cold, cruel, heartless" world that can't accept abnormality against a plucky, and mute, hero. Jumbo Jr. (Dumbo is a mean-spirited nickname) is ostracized from the circus pack shortly after his delivery by the stork because of his big ears. His mother sticks up for him and is shackled. He's jeered by children (an insightful scene has one boy poking fun at Dumbo's ears, even though the youngster's ears are also ungainly), used by the circus folk, and demoted to appearing with the clowns. Only the decent Timothy Q. Mouse looks out for the little guy. Concerns about the un-PC "Jim Crow" crows, who mock Dumbo with the wonderful "When I See an Elephant Fly," should be moderated by remembering that the crows are the only social group in the film who act kindly to the little outcast. If you don't mist up during the "Baby Mine" scene, you may be legally pronounced dead. --Keith Simanton
When a successful New York advertising executive (Will Smith) experiences a deep personal tragedy and retreats from life entirely, his colleagues devise a drastic plan to force him to confront his grief in a surprising and profoundly human way.
A convicted arsonist looks to manipulate a parole officer into a plan to secure his parole by placing his beautiful wife in the lawman's path.
China Moon (1991) is a pleasing entertainment that assembles the dependable elements of film noir in the tradition of Body Heat (1981), The Last Seduction (1994) and, of course, the mother of all such films, Double Indemnity (1944). There's a femme fatale (the beautiful and talented Madeleine Stowe) and an honest cop (reliable Ed Harris) who soon becomes smitten. Her husband (Charles Dance) is a brute who beats her, so she murders him and inveigles Harris into helping her dispose of the body. That's when the complications begin, and Harris starts to sweat when his fellow cop keeps asking awkward questions. The acting is uniformly good, with Harris' partner played by Benicio Del Toro (Traffic) offering an excellent performance. Harris and Stowe strike sparks off each other, to the point where you almost believe he is being sucked into her schemes. On the DVD: The disc contains a theatrical trailer and several TV ads, with scroll-down filmographies of the major talents involved which are incomplete for some unknown reason. There's a brief and unenlightening five-minute documentary, with the principal cast plus the director, John Bailey, commenting on the film. Both image and sound are excellent quality, sound in Dolby Digital, picture in anamorphic widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 --Ed Buscombe
One of the big Elizabethan-era films of 1998, Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth serves up a brimming goblet of religious tension, political conspiracy, sex, violence and war. England in 1554 is in financial and religious turmoil as the ailing Queen "Bloody" Mary attempts to restore Catholicism as the national faith. She has no heir, and her greatest fear--that her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth will assume the throne after her death--is realised. Still, the late Queen Mary has her loyalists. The newly crowned Elizabeth finds herself knee-deep in dethroning schemes while also dodging assassination attempts. Her advisers (including Sir William Cecil, superbly played by Richard Attenborough) beg her to marry any one of her would-be suitors to stabilise England's empire. No matter that she already has a lover. The passionate Robert Dudley (Joseph Fiennes) is married, however, and shows he cannot stand up to the growing strength of the Queen. With the help of her aide Walsingham (Geoffrey Rush), Elizabeth strikes against her enemies before they get to her first. But her rise ultimately entails rejecting love and marriage to redefine herself as the indisputable Virgin Queen. Cate Blanchett's Oscar-nominated performance as the naive and vibrant princess who becomes the stubborn and knowing queen is both severe and sympathetic. Her ethereal, pale beauty is equal parts fire and ice, her delivery of such lines as "There will be only one mistress here and no master!" expressed with command rather than hysterics. As striking as Blanchett's performance is the film's lavish and dramatic production design. The cold, dark sets paired with the lush costuming show the golden age of England's monarchy emerging from the Middle Ages. Rich velvet brushes over the dank stones while power is achieved at any price, and with such attention to physical detail, Elizabeth fully immerses you into its compelling chronicle of pioneering feminism and revisionist history. --Shannon Gee
El Dorado doesn't quite have the scope or ambition of Howard Hawks' greatest Westerns, Red River and Rio Bravo. But this relaxed picture, made near the end of Hawks' marvellous career, still shows the steady, sure hand of a master. Hawks reunites with John Wayne, playing a hired gun mixed up in a range war; Robert Mitchum is Wayne's old pal, now a sheriff in the midst of a hopeless drunken bender. James Caan, in one of his first sizable roles, plays a kid who can't shoot straight and wears a funny hat (every character in the movie makes fun of this hat). As the plot moves along, it begins to resemble Rio Bravo rather closely ("I steal from myself all the time", Hawks was fond of admitting). But in El Dorado the heroes are a bit older, their powers a bit weaker; at the end Wayne must revert to a bit of subterfuge in order to get the drop on the steely gunslinger (ice-cold Christopher George) he needs to put down. As relaxed as the movie is, Hawks and Wayne and company are in good spirits, with plenty of broad humour and easy camaraderie on display. Hawks and Wayne would make just one more film, the disappointing Rio Lobo, before ending their fruitful partnership. --Robert Horton
Shakespeare's tragic story of how a great man's vanity is manipulated by a jealous aide to bring about his downfall. A film by Stuart Burge of JohnDexter's production of 'Othello' at The National Theatre.
After fleeing Nazi Germany following the success of M and re-establishing himself in Britain as a villain for Alfred Hitchcock, the great Peter Lorre arrived in Hollywood in 1935, signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures. His dream star vehicle: a big-screen adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky s most famous novel Crime And Punishment. His choice of director: Josef von Sternberg, already celebrated and castigated in equal measure for his seven-film collaboration with Marlene Dietrich. Roderick Raskolnikov (Lorre) has graduated from university as a noted expert in criminology, but nonetheless lives in extreme poverty. Desperate and anguished, he murders a miserly pawnbroker, stealing her valuables before fleeing into the night. The next day, he encounters Inspector Porfiry (Edward Arnold), the detective assigned to the murder, and is asked by Porfiry to consult on the case when an innocent man is arrested as a suspect. How long until the conflicted, guilt-ridden Raskolnikov arouses the master detective s suspicions? One of many attempts at the time by Hollywood studios to give cinema an air of prestige by adapting great works of literature, Von Sternberg s stylish direction and Lorre s tour-de-force performance are ready for rediscovery in this Blu-Ray premiere of their only collaboration.
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