Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936): Gary Cooper is the pixilated small-town resident who refuses to let a million inheritance and a New York mansion alter his down-to-earth faith in people in Frank Capra's delightful comedy. Jean Arthur co-stars as the cynical reporter who falls for Deeds. Wild One (1954): Brando plays Johnny the leader of a vicious biker gang that involves a small sleepy California town. The leather-jacketed young biker seems hell-bent on destruction until he falls for Kathie (Mary Murphy) a good-girl whose father happens to be a cop. Unfortunately for Johnny his one shot at redemption is threatened by a psychotic rival Chino (Lee Marvin) plus the hostility and prejudice of the townspeople. All their smouldering passions explode in an electrifying climax. Holiday (1938): An iconoclastic young man (Cary Grant) who's engaged to a snooty heiress (Doris Nolan) discovers he's really in love with his fianc''e's down-to-earth sister (Katharine Hepburn) in director George Cukor's stylish comedy... The Howards Of Virginia (1940): Leading man Cary Grant plays Matt Howard a common man who gains employment as a surveyor through the help of Thomas Jefferson. Howard quickly falls head over heels for his wealthy employer's daughter Jane Peyton (Martha Scott). The couple appear to be set for happiness until Matt becomes involved in politics and the War of Independence arrives...
Knock Off (1998): When a shipment of jeans to the US proves counterfeit Marcus Ray the King of the Knock-Offs (Van Damme) finds himself at the centre of a Russian Mafia plot to hold the United States' security for ransom. Thousands of tiny micro-bombs disguised within other manufactured goods are schedules for departure from Hong Kong to America. When Ray's company's jeans are found to be the housing for the explosives he's the one man the CIA can count on to prevent certain disaster! In a territory where loyalty can change hands overnight Marcus Ray's survival will depend on him knowing the fakes from the real thing! Double Team (1997): Though he's the nation's top counter-terrorist Jack Quinn (Jean-Claude Van Damme) wants to get out of the spy game. But on his final mission he misses his target and wakes up in a place they call the Colony a think tank for spies who are too dangerous to roam the world but too valuable to be killed. With his target the dangerous enigmatic terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke) still on the loose and out to get his family. Quinn's only hope is the flamboyant but deadly gun dealer Yaz (Dennis Rodman). Desert Heat (1999): Desperate to flee the inner demons raging inside him mysterious loner Eddie Lomax (Van-Damme) rides to the last outpost of an abandoned desert highway prepared to end it all. But when a savage gang steals his prized cycle and leaves him for dead Eddie's life is saved by a soulmate from his past. Burning with a new reason to live Eddie sets off on a one-man search-and-destroy mission against his attackers. Fuelled by Van Damme's powerful performance Desert Heat is an explosive and sensational adventures from first to last. Nowhere To Run (1993): Action superstar Jean Claude Van Damme has nowhere to run and nothing to lose. An escaped prisoner hiding from the authorities Sam Gillen (Van Damme) always manages to be in the wrong place at the right time. Risking his hard-fought freedom he aids a beautiful young widow Clydie (Rosanna Arquette) and her children against a ruthless developer who's trying to drive them off their land. Hunted by both the police and the developer's hired killers Sam pulls no punches in his furious fight for survival - he'll do anything to protect the family who are protecting him. The result is more hard-hitting high kicking Van Damme action than you've ever seen!.
Jean-Claude Van Damme, aka "the Muscles from Brussels", had only a few movies to his credit when he played the hero in this lame post-apocalyptic action flick from 1989. It's really just another martial-arts movie, dressed down with near-future trash and dirty sets that have "low budget" written all over them. Van Damme plays the protective escort for a half-human, half-cyborg woman whose programming contains a possible cure for a plague that is threatening to wipe out the entire population of Earth. But the woman is kidnapped by Van Damme's evil nemesis (is there any other kind?) while they are en route to her Atlanta headquarters. That leads Van Damme right into a lion's den of sadomasochistic torture and torment. If you've made it this far (and if you have, why?), you are probably a founding member of the Jean-Claude Van Damme fan club. To everyone else: don't say you weren't warned--this is the kind of movie in which naming characters after electric guitars (Van Damme's character is named "Gibson Rickenbacker") qualifies as clever screen writing. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
The fantastic visions of Belgian film-makers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet find full fruition in this fairy tale for adults. Evoking utopias and dystopias from Brazil to Peter Pan, Caro and Jeunet create a vivid but menacing fantasy city in a perpetually twilight world. In this rough port town lives circus strongman One (Ron Perlman), who wanders the alleys and waterfront dives looking for his little brother, snatched from him by a mysterious gang preying upon the children of the town. Rising from the harbour is an enigmatic castle where lives the evil scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who has lost the ability to dream and robs the nocturnal visions of the children he kidnaps, but receives only mad nightmares from the lonely cherubs. Other wild characters include the Fagin-like Octopus--Siamese twin sisters who control a small gang of runaways-turned-thieves--Krank's six cloned henchmen (all played by the memorable Dominique Pinon from Delicatessen), and a giant brain floating in an aquarium (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant). Caro and Jeunet are kindred souls to Terry Gilliam (who is a vocal fan), creating imaginative flights of fancy built of equal parts delight and dread, which seem to be painted on the screen in rich, dreamy colours. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
Miranda runs a tavern in a small village somewhere in post-war Italy and juggles an assortment of lovers: a rich politician, a passing American GI, and a local gigolo, while all the time leading on and teasing the waiter she employs,
A Cinderella fairy tale set in the early 1930s Lady For A Day is a delightfully charming mix of drama and comedy that earned four Academy Award nominations and propelled Frank Capra to the top ranks of popular filmmakers. This was Capra's first major success establishing the model for the ""Capra-esque"" films that followed; and his first collaboration with legendary screenwriter Robert Riskin a partnership that produced such Oscar-winning classics as It Happened One Night
In wartime France, Raymond Samuel is captured after attending a meeting of the Resistance. His wife Lucie goes to extraordinary lengths, at great personal risk, as she attempts to rescue him before he is executed...
Brandon has a price to pay when on his stag weekend he wins ‘the most sexual conquests’ contest. One is interested in more than a one night stand and plans everything for him.
A Highland fling on a tight little island! The Scottish islanders of Todday bypass war time rationing and delight in smuggling cases of their favourite tipple from a wrecked ship... Basil Radford stars as the teetotal English official who is totally unable to comprehend the significance of whisky to the islanders. Marvellously detailed and well played it firmly established the richest Ealing vein with the common theme of a small group triumphing over a more powerful opponent.
Danny DeVito's adaptation of the Roald Dahl book for children is mostly just fine, helped along quite a bit by the charming performance of Mara Wilson (Mrs Doubtfire) as the eponymous young Matilda, a brilliant girl neglected by her stupid, self-involved parents (DeVito and Rhea Perlman). Ignored at home, Matilda escapes into a world of reading, exercising her mind so much she develops telekinetic powers. Good thing, too: sent off to a school headed by a cruel principal, Matilda needs all the help she can get. DeVito takes a highly stylized approach that is sometimes reminiscent of Barry Sonnenfeld (director of Get Shorty, a DeVito production), and his judgement is not the best in some matters, such as letting the comic-scary sequences involving the principal go on too long. But much of the film is delightful and funny.--Tom Keogh
One of the later films of her notably stellar career The Prince and The Showgirl teams Marilyn Monroe with the world's most respected thespian Sir Laurence Olivier in a humorous romp of a stately prince charming and his love for a humble but incredibly infectious performer. A fairy tale born in the Hollywood dream factory this film continues to be a lasting favourite. This Deluxe Series box set will include: DVD of 'The Prince And The Showgirl' DVD documentary 'The Legend Of Marilyn Monroe' a film Senitype'' (image from the film and 35mm film frame) US one sheet movie poster and an exclusive commemorative 16-page picture book of rare Marilyn images.
Jean-Claude Van Damme, aka "the Muscles from Brussels", has sought to revitalise his flagging career by working with the most adrenalised directors from Hong Kong action films. His first such effort was this, the umpteenth remake of The Most Dangerous Game, which teamed him with Hong Kong's most fluid action poet, John Woo (director of M:I2). Woo does what he can but, as much magic as he injects into the action, he can't turn Van Damme into an actor. Still, this is above-average fare for the wooden Belgian, in which he plays a guy trying to bust a ring of hunters who pay for the right to track and kill human quarry. And Woo has the ever-reliable Lance Henriksen as the chief bad guy, always a plus. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com
Director Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 movie The Battle of Algiers concerns the violent struggle in the late 1950s for Algerian independence from France, where the film was banned on its release for fear of creating civil disturbances. Certainly, the heady, insurrectionary mood of the film, enhanced by a relentlessly pulsating Ennio Morricone soundtrack, makes for an emotionally high temperature throughout. With the advent of the "war against terror" in recent years, the film's relevance has only intensified. Shot in a gripping, quasi-documentary style, The Battle of Algiers uses a cast of untrained actors coupled with a stern voiceover. Initially, the film focuses on the conversion of young hoodlum Ali La Pointe (Brahim Haggiag) to FLN (the Algerian Liberation Front.) However, as a sequence of outrages and violent counter-terrorist measures ensue, it becomes clear that, as in Eisenstein's October, it is the Revolution itself that is the true star of the film. Pontecorvo balances cinematic tension with grimly acute political insight. He also manages an even-handedness in depicting the adversaries. He doesn't flinch from demonstrating the civilian consequences of the FLN's bombings, while Colonel Mathieu, the French office brought in to quell the nationalists, is played by Jean Martin as determined, shrewd and, in his own way, honourable man. However, the closing scenes of the movie--a welter of smoke, teeming street demonstrations and the pealing white noise of ululations--leaves the viewer both intellectually and emotionally convinced of the rightfulness of the liberation struggle. This is surely among a fistful of the finest movies ever made. --David Stubbs
Filmmaker Barbet Schroeder explores themes of sexual freedom mind alteration and pursuit of paradise against the backdrop of an early 70's encounter with the Mapuga rain forest tribe in upland New Guinea.
The acclaimed director of 'The Bear' invites you to share in the unforgettable journey of Two Brothers an extraordinary film about two tiger cubs separated from their parents and each other! Their extraordinary journey home is a thoroughly endearing heart-tugging and family friendly story about their experience of being raised in very different human environments only to be reunited later as forced enemies pitted against each other.
Post World War 1 sees Eaton Place entering into a new era, both servants and masters are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of the 1920s. There is much insecurity in the air as the household members come to terms with the gaiety of the times coupled with the repercussions of the World War. Sadly the Eaton Place legacy ends here as James makes a bad investment and is forced to sell the house to pay off creditors.
Series 5 Part 1 includes the following episodes:
On With The D...
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