Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George star in this remake of the classic supernatural chiller.
An assassin caught between the KGB and the CIA plays the two against each other in an attempt to reclaim her life in ANNA; a sophisticated and satisfying action-thriller written and directed by Luc Besson.ANNA POLIATOVA (Sasha Luss) is discovered by a modeling scout while selling tchotchkes at a craft market and is whisked off to Paris where she becomes an instant sensation in the fashion world. But behind her exquisite exterior, Anna has a deadly secret - she is a KGB-trained assassin. Recruited after her abusive, thieving boyfriend is killed by agent ALEXEI TCHENKOV (Luke Evans), she was given a choice: spend five years as a Soviet operative or join her late lover.Using her striking looks to gain access to her targets, Anna becomes a top asset for her handler, OLGA (Helen Mirren), but as the end of her five-year agreement comes closer, she learns the KGB has no intention of honoring it. When CIA agent LENNY MILLER (Cillian Murphy) tries to force her to work as a double agent, Anna hatches a plan that could free her from both - or get her killed. Knowing that each of her contacts is prepared to betray her, setting the two against each other will require every bit of her brains, her sex appeal and her assassin's skills to succeed.Startling plot twists, breath-taking action and unexpected double crosses propel a smart, stylish espionage thriller set in the glittering world of high fashion.
It is an oft-repeated saw, about life in the heavenly spheres, that the angels revere Bach but listen to Mozart. If they have DVD players, you can bet theyre now watching this stunning production of Le Nozze di Figaro ("The Marriage of Figaro"), which comes about as close to Mozartian perfection as one could possibly hope to get. The faultlessly cast youthful performers bubble with infectious energy. Alison Hagley is a sprightly Susanna with a voice as clear as a bell, and brilliantly matched by a 28-year-old Bryn Terfel both acting and sounding in fine form. Hillevi Martinpelto demonstrates why she is one of the worlds favourite Mozart singers with her melting tones, richly coloured voice and generous stage presence, and Rodney Gilfry gives a muscular, wonderfully controlled performance as the Count. Olivier Milles direction mixes knockabout comedy and restrained pathos with fluid inventiveness, and there are even--heavens, can this really be an opera?--quite a few belly laughs, and deliciously amusing details. (Susannas guitar playing during Cherubinos "Voi che sapete" is a comic delight, and Figaros hidden sneers at Count Almaviva are hilarious.) John Eliot Gardiner draws exquisite playing from his authentic-instrument orchestra and employs tempos that are ideal. Add to that gorgeous 18th-century costumes and effective sets--it doesnt get much better than this. On the DVD: the production is beautifully realised for home viewing, with clear sound (the sets are simple wooden panels, which continually and flatteringly push the sound to the front) and great camera direction. There are subtitles in Italian, English, French, German, Spanish and Chinese but no other special features.--Warwick Thompson
Los Angeles 1991. It's been six years since Jack Deth wiped out the last of the Trancers zombie-like creatures whose mission is murder and he's happily settled with his new wife Lean (Helen Hunt). However his old adversaries are back and not content to let him rest...
Tom Courtenay gives a flawlessly nuanced performance as Billy Fisher the underachieving undertaker's assistant whose constant daydreams and truth-deficient stories earn him the nickname ""Billy Liar."" Julie Christie is the handbag-swinging charmer whose free spirit just might inspire Billy to finally move out of his parents' house. Deftly veering from gritty realism to flamboyant fantasy Billy Liar is a dazzling and uproarious classic.
Tremors: Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward star as two country handymen who lead a cast of zany characters to safety in this exciting sci-fi creature comedy. Just as Val McKee (Bacon) and Earl Basset (Ward) decide to leave Perfection Nevada strange rumblings prevent their departure. With the help of a shapely seismology student (Finn Carter) they discover their desolate town is infested with gigantic man-eating creatures that live below the ground. Tremors 2: In the style of its predecessor this comedy sci-fi creature-feature reunites Fred Ward as down-on-his-luck Earl Basset and Michael Gross as gung-ho survivalist Burt Gummer two desert desperados who take on the task of destroying the monsters. Partnered with them is Christopher Gartin a young guy in need of kicks cash and a career change and Helen Shaver a sexy and intrepid scientist who's seen it all...until now. Together they devise an ingenious plan for tracking and killing the creatures. Tremors 2 is filled with high speed action and plenty of laughs - until the predators wise up. Tremors 3: Burt Grummer returns after travelling abroad killing carnivorous giant worms called 'Graboids' and their offspring to life in his home town and must deal with some crooked land developers a thrill-seeking guy named Jack Sawyer looking for wealth in this potential tourist town and a new strain of Graboids...
Introducing America's Playboy Hero! Move over 007! And watch out Austin Powers! The U.S. has a braver smarter and more randy secret agent. His name: Flint. Derek Flint (James Coburn). In this hilarious spy spoof and exciting action adventure Flint battles Gila the sexy and savvy head agent whose organization is planning to destroy the world. It's a task that demands all of Flint's awesome powers of deduction destruction and - most of all - seduction. Crammed with joke
Coronation Street (Feature Film) (2010)
Taking its title from a teenage disco this eagerly anticipated first feature from British artist Tracey Emin marks a new chapter in her body of autobiographical work... Drawing on her experiences growing up in Margate the film features six teenage girls - Frances Helen Katie Kieri Laura and Lizzie - who all have a tale to tell. One moment filled with bravado the next awkward and insecure. In a series of interviews to camera the Margate girls tell their individual stories. We
A mysterious New York City cab driver is a powerful vampire. And working the night shift brings a sultry array of sensuous passengers within his grasp. Then unexpectedly he discovers erotic human passion - unleashing a raging terrorizing evil.
This mammoth box set features eight works of Dennis Potter spread over eleven discs. The Singing Detective:Slowly recovering from a terrible skin disease in a busy National Health hospital cynical thriller writer Phillip Marlow continues to unravel the traumas of his wartime boyhood while working through the plot of his greatest detective story - with himself as a crooning '40s detective on the trail of murderous Nazi plotters. But what is real and what is imagined? As childh
When Mary Rodgers, daughter of the composer Richard Rodgers, was reported as saying she never wanted to see another Oklahoma!, it was her way of paying the highest tribute to Trevor Nunn's production at the Royal National Theatre which was subsequently taken into the studio and filmed. The camera follows the playgoers into the auditorium of the Olivier where in their company we watch the show and applaud the numbers as the real thing. Nunn treats Rodgers and Hammerstein's first collaboration with the utmost seriousness restoring the full text, running to three-and-a-half hours, so that it comes across as a drama indebted to Eugene O'Neill. The documentary, viewed preferably as a preview, with Tim Piggott Smith the penny-plain narrator, allows one to relish in the smallest detail Nunn's scrupulous touch, which according to Maureen Lipman (Aunt Eller) included addressing the cast for two days at rehearsal, an approach that by her account paid off handsomely for the company. Although Oklahoma! unfolds at a leisurely pace, it is extraordinary how one is drawn into the drama under Nunn's direction. There's seldom a wish for true locations as the pace picks up and we move into the claustrophobic company of Judd Fry in his riveting encounter with the cowboy Curly. The close up camera work affords an experience the theatre can't bring and pays handsome dividends too in appreciating Susan Stroman's intricate and lively choreography that was dissipated somewhat on the big apron stage of the Olivier. Her dancers are a fine team, notably Jimmy Johnston who is outstanding as Will Parker leading the Kansas City ensemble. Hugh Jackman as Curly matches him in vocal prowess and looks, and Shuler Hensley sings the tricky role of Judd Fry very well. It's harder to place Peter Polycarpou's Pedlar, a considerably larger role than in the film version, whose accent strays from East End wideboy to the plains of Europe. Maureen Lipman, rightly deemed the lynchpin of the musical by Nunn, is a joy to watch. Laurey and Ado Annie are good but not special. Aside from an abrupt start to Act Two and the occasional voice off microphone, the production sounds good with a larger orchestra present than in the theatre. An Oklahoma! on an epic scale. --Adrian Edwards
The first major film production for a quarter of a century Macbeth is authentically set in eleventh century Scotland this epic award winning production conjures a world of grim battle fields desolate moors forbidding castles and haunted caverns. Peopled by witches and warriors assassins Kings and an infamous Queen Macbeth moves at a breathtaking pace through tales of war murder intrigue and revenge.
Billy Liar was the multimedia phenomenon of its era. Starting out as a novel by Yorkshire writer Keith Waterhouse, it rapidly became a long-running stage play, adapted by Waterhouse with playwright Willis Hall, which lead to the movie, scripted by Waterhouse and Hall for John Schlesinger to direct, then a stage musical and finally a spin-off TV series. Do you get the feeling it caught the mood of the times? The basic set-up owes a lot to James Thurber's classic short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Our hero, Billy Fisher, lives at home in a Bradford semi with his nagging parents and works as a lowly clerk in an undertaker's parlour. But, in his imagination he lives a rich and varied fantasy life as gallant military leader, suave socialite, best-selling novelist and so forth. Trouble is, he can't always keep fantasy and reality apart, any more than he can the keep two girls he's engaged to separate. Not to mention his other problemsÂ…. Schlesinger's direction brings out the desperation behind the comedy, and Tom Courtenay, at once defiant and hangdog, slips perfectly into the role created on stage by Albert Finney. But the whole cast's a joy, not least the great Leonard Rossiter as undertaker Mr Shadrach, Billy's saturnine boss. And then there's Julie Christie--the luminous spirit of the Swinging 60s--in her first starring role as the girl who offers Billy a chance of real escape. At the end, when she takes the train to London, away from the smoke and the grimness "oop" north, the whole British New Wave went with her. On the DVD: just the theatrical trailer which is a fairly crass affair. There's been no remastering, it seems, but both sound and vision are clean enough and the print preserves the original's full 2.35:1 widescreen ratio. --Philip Kemp
Steve Catlin was known as a real lady-killer. But it's his new bride's mysterious death that causes his former wife Edie Ballew to question how accurate that nickname really is. With little more than a hunch and the help of an out-of-town detective Edie finds clues that reveal her cunning and smooth ex husband as a cold methodical killer. But can she warn his latest wife and can she convince the local police...
First broadcast in 1974, the ITV bedsitland sitcom Rising Damp was an instant and enduring success. It starred Leonard Rossiter as the miserly and lovelorn landlord Rigsby who is constantly needling young lodger Alan (Richard Beckinsale), a science student whose long hair and earrings are symptomatic to Rigsby of the parlous effeminacy of the modern age. He's also in love with Frances De La Tour's dowdy spinster Miss Jones, though his tentative advances are forever rebuffed. She in turn carries a torch for Philip (Don Warrington), the elegant son of an African chief who also resides at Rigsby Towers. Some aspects of Rising Damp have not aged well, principally Rigsby's stream of racist jibes at Philip. Although these were doubtless well-meant and supposed to illustrate Rigsby's foolish bigotry, you suspect that that was a convenient cover for audiences in the 1970s to enjoy racist humour. However, Rossiter's Rigsby--stuttering, stammering, bent perpetually over backwards--remains a great comic creation, embodying all the festering prejudices, small-mindedness and self-delusion of the lower middle class Little Englander. --David Stubbs
Roman Polanski's psychological drama was his first English-language feature. A young Belgian woman (Catherine Deneuve) is left alone in a Kensington apartment when her sister goes away. She becomes increasingly unstable, experiencing hallucinations which have their roots in her fear of male sexuality. When two aggressive men turn up, her tortured nightmares spill into real life violence.
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