Kidnapped and taken prisoner, a formidable ex-Special Forces agent, Billie (Natalie Burn, The Expendables 3) wakes up to discover she is stranded on a remote desert island. Rescued from a terrifying conflict with a killer mercenary by a determined group of islanders, it quickly becomes apparent that they are all part of a terrifying plot to harvest their organs. Increasingly aware of the sinister situation she is in, and tempered by the desire to find her missing sister, Billie has to utilise her combat skills and work together with the others to fight her captors . Hunted down one by one, and with danger at every turn, a race against time ensues as they battle to do everything they can to make it off the island alive . Starring Vinnie Jones (X-Men: The Last Stand, Snatch), Robert Davi (Die Hard, Licence to Kill) and Daryl Hannah (Kill Bill: Vol 1, Blade Runner) Left to Die is an action-packed, kinetic thrill-ride demonstrating endurance and survival in its rawest form.
As accomplished as it is superfluous, Willard is a stylish horror film with plenty of style but precious little horror. Genre buffs will appreciate it as a visually superior sequel/remake of its popular 1971 predecessor, giving Crispin Glover a title role perfectly suited to his uniquely odd persona, in the same league as Psycho's Norman Bates. This time, Willard's the psychotically lonely son of the original film's now-deceased protagonist: a milquetoast introvert who befriends an army of obedient rats--lethal allies when Willard's pushed to his emotional breaking point by his abusive boss (R. Lee Ermey). In keeping with his memorably macabre episodes of X-Files, writer-director Glen Morgan excels with dreary atmosphere and mischievously morbid humor (including an ill-fated cat named Scully), and Glover gives his best performance since River's Edge. But even the furry villain Ben--an oversized rat with attitude--is more funny than frightful. With some justification, Glover's fans will appreciate the open door to a sequel. --Jeff Shannon
More from the classic BBC drama set on Tyneside at the end of the first world war starring James Bolam as the loveable rogue Jack Ford....
John Thaw takes the first starring role of his career in RedCap in which he plays Sergeant John Mann of the Royal Military Policess Special Investigation Branch. Made in 1964 at a time when the British army was still highly active Redcap's scripts cover investigations in Germany Aden Cyprus and Borneo. Episodes Comprise: 1. Crime Passionel 2. The Pride Of The Regiment 3. The Killer 4. Buckingham Palace 5. Rough Justice 6. The Moneylenders 7. St
A bumper box set of classic films featuring 'The Queen' Barbara Stanwyck! Double Indemnity (Dir. Billy Wilder 1944): Director Billy Wilder and writer Raymond Chandler ('The Big Sleep') adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But of cou
The Sign of Four is a 1987 feature-length version of Conan Doyle's second Sherlock Holmes novel, and is faithful to the original story except in one important detail: Dr Watson (Edward Hardwicke) does not get the girl. Otherwise, the familiar tale of the death of Bartholomew Sholto and the theft of the Agra treasure is all here, featuring a snappy performance by Jeremy Brett as Holmes doing some of the finest investigative work of his career. The famous climax, a chase on the Thames in which Holmes is almost struck dead by an exotic weapon, is handled very well. Sherlockians may have a hard time not seeing Watson's romantic pursuit of Mary Morstan (Lila Kaye), his first wife according to Doyle's book, but it would hardly have been practical in the context of the long-running Granada Television series. The rest is to be enjoyed, however. --Tom Keogh
Comedy greats Jimmy Jewel and Hilda Baker star as Eli Pledge and his sister Nellie in the classic award-winning comedy Nearest and Dearest. Eli - an aging lothario - and Nellie - virtuous to the last but in possession of a wonderfully flexible grip on the English language - inherit clapped out condiment company Pledge's Purer Pickles from their father. Much hilarity ensues amongst the malaproprisms bolshie workforce and none-too-subtle double entendres as the siblings try their best to run a profitable company in spite of one another. Episodes Comprise: 1. A Price On Your Head 2. A Young Man's Fancy 3. When You've Got To Go 4. When Love Walks In 5. An Open-And-Shut Case
This tremendous box set features a quartet of Jimmy Stewart's classic performances. Harvey (Dir. Henry Koster 1950): James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd a wealthy alcoholic whose sunny disposition and drunken antics are tolerated by most of the citizens of his community. That is until Elwood begins to claim that he has a friend named Harvey who is an invisible six foot rabbit. Elwood's snooty socialite sister Veta determined to marry off her daughter Myrtle to a respec
A fascinating 5 disc collection providing a fitting tribute to this giant of the silver screen including four of his films a rarely seen live TV appearance and two documentaries on his life and work. The Stranger (1946): In postwar Germany a meeting of the War Crimes Commission is being held. Those present decide that a heinous Nazi war criminal (Konstantin Shayne) should be released from prison in the hopes that he will lead the commission to his superior the infamous Franz
An excellent collection of 5 films featuring Jennifer Aniston. The Object of My Affection (Dir. Nicholas Hytner 1998): A romantic comedy-drama that pushes the very tender line between love sex and friendship! Nina a social worker shares a cozy flat with her dear friend George who happens to be gay. When Nina becomes pregnant by her overbearing boyfriend she begs George to step into the breach - but is he ready to be a surrogate dad? Picture Perfect (Dir. Glenn Gordon Caron 1997): As adorable as she is ambitious Kate is determined to turn her mid-level advertising job into an executive position - and equally determined to snare Sam the agency's ultra-suave Romeo who prefers illicit affairs with attached women. She achieves both goals by pretending she's getting married to Nick a man she met at a wedding and barely knows. But her carefully constructed fictional life comes face to face with reality when her boss wants to meet Nick sending Kate's personal and professional worlds spinning out of control... She's The One (Dir. Edward Burns 1996): Filmmaker and star Edward Burns follows his acclaimed debut The Brothers McMullen with this equally fresh funny and wry romantic comedy about two brothers wrestling their preposterous approaches to life and love. Mickey (Burns) a free-spirited New York cabbie and Francis (Mike McGlone) a materialistic Wall Street stockbroker are extremely competitive and confused about women as a result of their father's (John Mahoney) influence. Though they disagree about nearly everything they have one thing in common: Mickey's ex-fianc Heather (Cameron Diaz) is Francis' secret lover. Though the brothers have beautiful wives (Maxine Bahns and Jennifer Aniston) Heather triggers their longtime sibling rivalry with uproarious and unexpected results. Office Space (Dir. Mike Judge 1999): Fasten your ergonomic seat belt you're in for a hilarious ride through the inner workings of Office Space the outrageous hit comedy that will strike fear into the little hearts of bosses everywhere! Unable to endure another mind-numbing day at Initech Corporation cubicle slave Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) gets fired up and decides to get fired. Armed with a leisurely new attitude and a sexy new girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston) he soon masters the art of neglecting his job which quickly propels him into the ranks of upper management! The Good Girl (Dir. Miguel Arteta 2002): Thirty-year-old Justine Last longs for a life more fulfilling than the one she leads with her boring husband and dead-end job at the Retail Rodeo. But when a passionate young co-worker catches her eye and steals her heart Justine's good-girl existence takes a turn for the worse...
With this third season, Frasier scored an impressive hat trick, winning its third successive Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. You don't need too much analysis to get to the bottom of this unprecedented success. The series was a primetime oasis of wit and sophistication, with welcome forays into farce that pricked Frasier's bubble of pomposity. His priceless reactions to the assaults on his dignity are worthy of Jack Benny. Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) can be infuriating, as in "The Focus Group," in which he is obsessed with knowing why a lone focus group participant (guest star Tony Shalhoub) doesn't like him. But he is also endearing in his delusional view of himself as, in the words of one mocking bystander, a "man of the people." Frasier meets his match in new station owner Kate Costas (Oscar-winner Mercedes Ruehl). Their combative relationship turns to lust over the course of the first 10 episodes. But the season's most pivotal story arc is the separation of Niles (David Hyde Pierce) and Maris. "Moon Dance," which marked Grammer's directorial debut, is a series benchmark, as a crestfallen Niles tangos with his unrequited love, Daphne (Jane Leeves), at a high society ball. Not that the Crane family still doesn't have issues to work out. Frasier cannot abide being beaten at chess by Martin (John Mahoney) in "Chess Pains." Frasier and Niles ill-advisedly go into joint practice in "Shrink Rap," and find themselves on the opposite sides of a sanity hearing in "Crane vs. Crane." Lilith is sorely missed, but in this season's blast-from-the-past episode, Shelley Long returns in "The Show Where Diane Comes Back." It is a joy to see Cheers resurrected, if only in Diane's self-absorbed new play, which Frasier agrees to back. And any episode with Frasier's amoral agent Bebe (Harriet Sansom Harris) is must-see television. Frasier's humor was character-based, rather than topical, giving it a longer shelf life. For those who lament the end of one of television's gold standard series, this box set will be excellent therapy. --Donald Liebenson
Fatal Instinct is a hilarious no-holds-barred send-up of such stylish thrillers as Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. Ned Ravine (Armande Assante) is a cop and a lawyer. His wife wants to kill him his secretary wants to sleep with him and there's a mysterious client who wants to sleep with him and kill him. That's Monday. Who knows what Tuesday will bring?
Set in Dublin during the Lockout of 1913 Hugh Leonard's faithful adapttion portrrays the lives of the Irish workers the strike the riots and the hardships of early 20th Century Ireland. It's a story bursting with unforgetable characters caught up in the bitter struggles of the age driven by love and hate pride and devotion.
Released in 1968, Charly is a period-piece from the summer of love when "natural" was nirvana, the air hummed with the mantra "Everybody's beautiful", and all ills stemmed from institutional monoliths such as Science, Government, Education, and Religion. It is adapted from Daniel Keyes' novel Flowers for Algernon and its hero, Charly (Cliff Robertson), is 30 years old and mentally handicapped. His innocent sweetness makes him superior to most able-minded folk, whether they're the bigoted dolts he sweeps floors for or the ambitious scientists who see him as the human equivalent of Algernon, a mouse they've surgically (but impermanently) smartened up. Naturally, post-op Charly, sporting a genius IQ, "sees things as they are". Trotted out as the neurosurgeons' poster boy, he stands up to the "learned" audience--shot as faceless, inhuman interrogators. He's every 60s flower child, berating his "elders" for blighting their brave new world. The one reward Charly derives from his higher IQ is sex. In a lengthy montage resembling a retro TV commercial, he and his teacher (Claire Bloom, a madonna with an eternal Mona Lisa smile) romp through Edenic gardens, their embraces hallowed by sunlight glinting through leaves, moonlight glinting on water, and sappy Ravi Shankar music (stylistic clichés also include embarrassing outbreaks of split screens and multiple small screens within the frame, notably when rebellious Charly turns biker). Robertson's performance is well-meaning but mawkishly sentimental. Still, in the penultimate moments when Charly begins to slide back into mental illness, the actor achieves a genuine tragic gravity, and he became a surprise Oscar winner for his pains. --Kathleen Murphy, Amazon.com
Disney gives families a gift full of the spirit of the season as Ed Asner plays Horace McNickle a counterfeiter who escapes prison through his extraordinary likeness to St. Nick. The Police are closing in but Christmas is near so there are redsuited ones everywhere. McNickle is desperate to recover loot from an earlier caper and can't make a move until he takes advantage of two neighborhood kids who really believe he is Santa. After the kids come through it dawns on him that he has always missed the true meaning of the holidays. rather than make good on his escape he tries to make good on his promises.
Norman Wisdom returns as his famous "Pitkin" character, but also for the first time since his appearance in 1958's The Square Peg, Edward Chapman is also back to provide Norman with the excuse to reprise his immortal catch-phrase "Mr Grimsdale". Following on from the previous year's On the Beat, this is actually Wisdom's third adventure as Norman Pitkin, and he certainly has a thing about uniforms. In the previous pictures he was in the army then the police, while here he succeeds in causing chaos in a St. John's Ambulance unit, as well as donning drag to play a blonde nurse complete with suspender belt and silk stockings. Each Norman Wisdom movie usually sees him as the accidental Lord of Misrule in one institution or another, and this time its the NHS: after being banned from his local hospital, Norman resorts to subterfuge to visit a little orphan girl. There's an autobiographical touch here, as Wisdom himself was raised in an orphanage and centred the plot of One Good Turn (1954) around such an establishment. It's all good fun and clearly shows where such later British comedy as Michael Crawford's BBC TV series Some Mothers Do 'Av 'Em (1973-78) found its inspiration. --Gary S. Dalkin
Review for Founding Brothers:The political wrangles of a fledgling country may sound dull compared to the drama of a war, but the early history of the United States only gets more fascinating as the Revolutionary War is left behind. Founding Brothers, a documentary from the History Channel, examines the struggle to not only establish democracy, but to give it the economic strength and governmental structure that will allow it to survive and thrive. George Washington grappled not only with politics, but with questions of style and propriety--how should a president, as opposed to a king, behave? Understanding the conflicts between Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson will illuminate ideas that have shaped the government of the U.S. ever since. Founding Brothers provides a wealth of portraits and illustrations from the time, as well as discreet dramatizations, that bring the rise of party politics to life, humanizing these historical figures with tales of the scandals and squabbles they faced as well as their political achievements. An excellent introduction to the roots of the American experiment, and a bracing illustration of what Jefferson meant when he said of the presidency, "No man will bring out of that office the reputation which carried him into it." --Bret Fetzer
Meet Tony (Sinatra) a wannabe big shot who's constantly broke. While the carefree widower may not have money he is rich in one respect; he's got the unconditional love of his adoring young son Ally (Eddie Hodges). However when Tony asks his wealthy brother Mario (Robinson) for a loan Mario who disapproves of Tony's lifestyle agrees to back his brother on one condition: settle down or give him custody of Ally! Tony may be desperate but he'd have to have a hole in the head to ag
Frasier's fourth season was mostly about relationships. Niles (David Hyde Pierce), now separated from Maris, is back on the market like his bachelor brother, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer). That's great when the pair goes to a cabin with a pair of fetching women (Megan Mullaly, later of Will and Grace, and Lisa Darr), but Niles is never able to completely dispel his attachment to his suffocating wife... or to Daphne (Jane Leeves). His obsession with the latter gets an immediate burst in the season's first episode, in which he has to masquerade as Daphne's husband, then later comes to a head when she appears at his apartment door asking to stay the night. The boys have the usual disputes with their father (John Mahoney), including their disdain for the former cop's new girlfriend, Sherry (Marsha Mason), the boisterous, banjo-twangin', "gotcha"-playing bartender who would remain a regular cast member through the end of the series. Ex-wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) makes her annual appearance, this time when she and Frasier try to get Frederick into an exclusive prep school. And the title character? As much as Frasier teases his producer Roz (Peri Gilpin) about her dating habits, he himself is lonely, leading him to a memorable airport encounter with guest star Linda Hamilton and a season finale that proves a kind of a harbinger to the series' final episode. This season made Frasier a perfect four-for-four at the Emmys, winning its fourth consecutive award for Outstanding Comedy Series. Unlike previous seasons, this DVD set has no bonus features. --David Horiuchi
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