The intrigue continues in the third volume of Gasaraki...
Hoo-ah! After seven Oscar nominations for his outstanding work in films such as The Godfather, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, it's ironic that Al Pacino finally won the Oscar for his grandstanding lead performance in this 1992 crowd pleaser. As the blind, blunt, and ultimately benevolent retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, Pacino is both hammy and compelling, simultaneously subtle and grandly over-the-top when defending his new assistant and prep school student Charlie (Chris O'Donnell) at a disciplinary hearing. While the subplot involving Charlie's prep-school crisis plays like a sequel to Dead Poets Society, Pacino's adventurous escapades in New York City provide comic relief, rich character development, and a memorable supporting role for Gabrielle Anwar as the young woman who accepts the colonel's invitation to dance the tango. Scent of a Woman is a remake of the 1972 Italian film Profumo di donna. In addition to Pacino's award, Scent of Woman garnered Oscar nominations for director Martin Brest and for screenwriter Bo Goldman. --Jeff Shannon
Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads was actually a revival, in 1973, of the successful Dick Clements/Ian La Frenais 1960s comedy The Likely Lads, so notable for its fibrous but sympathetic treatment of life for two young men coming of age in North East England. This "Very Best of" collection brings together classic episodes from the 1973 series. Although tinged with nostalgia--the décor and styles of the early 1970s are almost pungently evocative--the quality of the writing defies the passage of time. Seven years on from their initial adventures, Rodney Bewes (upwardly mobile, self-improving Bob) and James Bolam (feckless, chippy Terry) meet by accident on the train. Bob is about to marry Thelma and move into modern semi-detached heaven, while Terry is just out of the army and drifting back home without a great deal of purpose. The relationship between the two men, basically sound but frequently compromised by their very different aspirations, is very cleverly drawn and played so that your sympathies never stay on one side for very long. Best of all, Brigit Forsyth's Thelma, a dragon in the making, adds an astringent dynamic. She is, says Terry, "so stuck up she thinks her backside's a perfume factory". The insecurity he generates in her is responsible for much of the comedy. On the DVD: The Very Best of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads comes to disc with no extras, simply standard 4:3 picture format video production and episode selection. But it's still fresh as a daisy all the same. --Piers Ford
The complete fifth season of Buffy's vampire vanquishing adventures. Episodes comprise: 1. Buffy Vs. Dracula 2. Real Me 3. The Replacement 4. Out Of My Mind 5. No Place Like Home 6. Family 7. Fool For Love 8. Shadow 9. Listening To Fear 10. Into The Woods 11. Triangle 12. Checkpoint 13. Blood Ties 14. Crush 15. I Was Made To Love You 16. The Body 17. Forever 18. Intervention 19. Tough Love 20. Spiral 21. The Weight Of The World 22. The Gift
Drew Barrymore stars in the true life tale of a teen mother who overcame all sorts of hardships and went on to become a succesful writer in later life.
MARLENE DIETRICH (Blonde Venus) and JAMES STEWART (Vertigo) ride high in this superb comedic western, both a boisterous spoof and a shining example of the genre it is having fun with. As the brawling, rough-and-tumble saloon singer Frenchy, Dietrich shed her exotic love-goddess image and launched a triumphant career comeback, while Stewart cemented his amiable everyman persona, in his first of many westerns, with a charming turn as a gun-abhorring deputy sheriff who uses his wits to bring law and order to the frontier town of Bottleneck. A sparkling script, a supporting cast of virtuoso character actors, and rollicking musical numbers - delivered with unmatched bravado by the magnetic Dietrich - come together to create an irresistible, oft-imitated marvel of studio-era craftsmanship. Special Features: New 4K digital restoration by Universal Pictures in collaboration with The Film Foundation, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray New interview with critic Imogen Sara Smith New interview with Donald Dewey, author of James Stewart: A Biography New video essay featuring excerpts from a 1973 oral-history interview with director George Marshall, conducted by the American Film Institute Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film from 1945, featuring actors James Stewart and Joan Blondell PLUS: An essay by critic Farran Smith Nehme
Filmed entirely on location in Hawaii Hawaii Five-O followed Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord) head of an elite state police unit investigating organized crime murder assassination attempts foreign agents felonies of every type. James MacArthur played his second-in-command Danny (Danno) Williams. McGarrett's nemesis is the evil Wo Fat - a Red Chinese agent in charge of the entire Pacific Asiatic theatre.
Harking back to the wilderness days of British cinema, The Wedding Tackle is an unsophisticated comedy of manners and relationships. Dealing with the impending matrimony of Hal and Vinny, a union that neither are particularly keen to enter into, the story intertwines a number of characters during the events of Hal's stag night. As the title suggests, much of the humour is aimed below the waist, and although it does wend its way to some sort of romantic conclusion, subtlety is not the film's strong point. Victoria Smurfit's Clodegh is by far the best character, an urban Tank Girl whose morals are as erratic as her driving skills. Bold, brash and noisy, The Wedding Tackle isn't the worst film around, but we can do so much better. --Phil Udell
Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It's a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra's masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director's optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra's triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming--in the teary-eyed final reel--his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It's a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. --Robert Horton
Gavin is an ordinary boy from Billericay in Essex Stacey is an ordinary girl from Barry Island in South Wales. After months of speaking on the phone to each other at work they finally meet fall in love and get married.
Kay Mellor's comedy drama series following a collection of characters whose personal life struggles are relayed to each other during their weekly slimming class... Episodes comprise: 1. Eat Your Heart Out 2. Leggs Over Easy 3. Food For Thought 4. Bacon Bagels And The Bishop 5. Afters 6. Food Of Love
Chef James Martin will take viewers on a journey of discovery, uncovering the history and culture of Spain's diverse regions through food for James Martin's Spanish Adventure. James will journey through Spain on the search for key ingredients, rustic eateries and traditional recipes that make the country one of the most exciting places in the world for gastronomy. Along the way James will share his own take on local dishes, setting up his mobile kitchen against backdrops of stunning scenery and also taking up residency in a Spanish 'home from home' kitchen.
From BAFTA winning director Mike Leigh with stunning performances from Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen and Marion Bailey, All or Nothing is an incredible tale of the intertwining lives of several families on a housing estate in London. Following different tales of melancholy, alcoholism, a violent abusive boyfriend and a frustrated unemployed youth - there seems to be no hope for a brighter future and no chance of escape yet glimmers of joy and humour still prevail. Boasting first time screen performances from Sally Hawkins, Daniel Mays and James Corden this brand new restoration is an authentic and deeply enjoyable Mike Leigh classic.
When 11-year-old Preston Water's bicycle is hit by a crook on the run a hastily scrawled BLANK CHEQUE sets the wheels in motion for the spending spree of a lifetime. Preston fills out the cheque for 1 million dollars and starts buying up all his dreams - his own house a chauffeured limo and of course the best toys money can buy. But before long the crooks and the FBI are hot on Preston's trail and he's about to learn that a million dollars can buy a whole lot of trouble. In the
Murphy's Law is a thoroughly unpleasant 1986 thriller stars Charles Bronson as a cop systematically framed for one murder after another. The killings, though, turn out to be the work of a female nutcase (Carrie Snodgress) he had once sent away to prison. Everyone involved in this leans on the atrocity-and-revenge formula, particularly Bronson and director J Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone), two Hollywood guys who once upon a time made plenty of classic films. Snodgress's performance is unhinged, interesting but hard to watch, as we never really got to know her onscreen after Diary of a Mad Housewife. Just think of this movie as having come from the same creepy planet as the Death Wish series. --Tom Keogh
The first and only film shot entirely in subtitled Latin, Sebastiane is Derek Jarman's first work as a director (though he shared the job with the less well-known Paul Humfress) and is a strange combination of gay nudie movie, pocket-sized Ancient Roman epic and meditation upon the image of Saint Sebastian. It opens with the Lindsay Kemp dance troupe romping around with huge fake phalluses to represent the Ken Russell-style decadence of the court of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 303, then decamps to Tuscany as Diocletian's favourite guard Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio) is demoted to ordinary soldier and dispatched to a backwater barracks because the Emperor (Robert Medley) suspects him of being a covert Christian. The bulk of the film consists of athletic youths in minimal thongs romping around the countryside, soaking themselves down between bouts of manly horseplay or sylvan frolic. It all comes to a bad end as the lecherous but guilt-ridden commanding officer Severus (Barney James) fails to cop off with Sebastian and instead visits floggings and tortures upon his naked torso, finally ordering his men to riddle the future saint with arrows, thus securing him a place in cultural history. The public schoolboy cleverness of scripting dialogue in Latin--a popular soldier's insult is represented by the Greek "Oedipus"--works surprisingly well, with the cast reeling off profane Roman dialogue as if it were passionate Italian declarations rather than marbled classical sentences. The film suffers from the not-uncommon failing that the best-looking actor is given the largest role but delivers the weakest performance: Treviglio's Sebastian is a handsome cipher, far less interesting than the rest of the troubled, bullying, awkward or horny soldiers in the platoon. Peter Hinwood, famous for the title role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, can be glimpsed in the palace orgy. The countryside looks as good as the cast, and Brian Eno delivers an evocative, ambient-style score. --Kim Newman
Jim and Hilda Bloggs are the typical retired couple in rural England. They drink endless cups of tea and have an unwavering faith in the wisdom of their government. They understand that a Third World War is imminent between the US and the Soviets. However they fail to grasp the concept that war will be fought by nuclear means and what consequences this will have. With the help of government issued pamphlets Jim builds a shelter to protect the couple and although they survive a n
Following their first adventure where oenophile Oz Clarke and wine novice James May strived to demystify the mysteries of French wine we join the pair in California as they take a month-long trip around the revered Californian wineries. They begin in Santa Barbara county - home of Pinot Noir where Oz is a local hero and inspiration to winemakers. Travelling on they meet wine 'renegades' an eccentric millionaire bicker when James crashes the Monaco Recreational Vehicle and argue over the quality of wine - from the Inaccessible and over-priced to 'two-buck-Chuck' who knocks out bottles for only two dollars. Finally they arrive at the glamorous Napa Valley where they are dismayed to discover that they're staying in the car park. The pair argue about who will empty the RV's waste tank then sample Californian sparkling wine at the Taittinger estate. Next the Schramsberg estate where they have a heated debate about what bubbles taste like!
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