To paraphrase the Green Goliath himself, this Incredible Hulk release is a smash, providing 83 minutes of exciting sci-fi with enough action to satisfy Hulk novices and scripting that hews to its Marvel Comics origin (which will please longtime devotees). This set compiles the first four episodes of the 1996-97 animated series that outline the Hulk's origins as well as the struggles of his human alter ego Bruce Banner to rid himself of the creature. The episodes also make fine use of Marvel's rosters of heroes and villains; in the two-part "Return of the Beast", the Hulk tangles with the Leader, the Gargoyle and the hideous Abomination, and in "Raw Power" he's up against the malevolent ZZZAX; in "Helping Hand, Iron Fist", he goes mano-a-mano with Iron Man and War Machine. Terrific performances (TV Hulk Lou Ferrigno provides the creature's voice) and extensive extras make this a must-have for comic and cartoon aficionados. On the DVD:: The Incredible Hulk DVD will provide some clarity to viewers unfamiliar with his past and it also provides some choice trivia for those better versed in Hulk lore. The most enjoyable extra is "Inside the Hulk", which accesses interesting comments and factoids from comic book writer Peter David and Hulk creator Stan Lee throughout the four episodes. The always-exuberant Lee also provides brief introductions to each episode and, in "Stan Lee's Soapbox", voices his feelings on comics and his own unparalleled career. Older audiences will undoubtedly be amused by the inclusion of the first three episodes from the 1966 Incredible Hulk animated series. But primitive cels aside, the episodes will be of interest to vintage comic book fans, as they utilise original Hulk artist Jack Kirby's drawings. --Paul Gaita
The definition of comfort television is this: you want to go where you know everybody's name. And you're always glad you came. Cheers is open for business once again in this set that contains all 22 episodes of the first, and best, season of the show that inherited Taxi's mantle as television's best ensemble-driven workplace comedy. It can be instructive to return to a long-running series' more humble beginnings. While Cheers got drunk on farce in its later years, it began life as a much more grounded human comedy. In these inaugural episodes, the action does not stray from the Boston bar owned by Sam Malone, a washed-up baseball player three years sober. The straws that stir the drink are the supporting players: Nick Colasanto as addled Coach; Rhea Perlman, the Thelma Ritter of her generation, as surly and fertile waitress Carla; George Wendt as quintessential barfly Norm; and John Ratzenberger as Cliff, the bar know-it-all ready with "little-known facts" (and blessedly far from the pathetic blowhard his character would evolve into). Spiking this concoction is the palpable chemistry between Ted Danson's Sam and Shelley Long's Diane Chambers, fledgling waitress and self-described "student of life". The battle lines are drawn in the episode "Sam's Women": He's the "dim ex-baseball player" and she, "the post graduate". But, as Carla so indelicately puts it, they can't "put their glands on hold". In the first blush of lust, they were primetime's most potent mismatched couple until Moonlighting's David and Maddie bantered double entendres. Here are little remembered facts: Sam was initially "an astute judge of human character"; guest stars Fred Dryer ("Sam at Eleven") and Julia Duffy ("Any Friend of Diane's") were among those considered for the roles of Sam and Diane; and a pre-"Night Court" Harry Anderson stole his scenes in his recurring role as flim-flam man Harry ("Pick a Con...Any Con"). --Donald Liebenson
Based on the seminal horror novel by Stephen King, Pet Sematary follows Dr. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who, after relocating with his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their two young children from Boston to rural Maine, discovers a mysterious burial ground hidden deep in the woods near the family's new home. When tragedy strikes, Louis turns to his unusual neighbor, Jud Crandall (John Lithgow), setting off a perilous chain reaction that unleashes an unfathomable evil with horrific consequences.
"Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo" marks the triumphant return of two hilarious, slacker anti-heroes.
A star-studded cast heads this Agatha Christie story about the efforts of Hercule Poirot (Peter Ustinov) to fathom the mysterious death of a capricious star in a Mediterranean resort hotel...
Marley has a rare gift that comes with mixed blessings. She can talk to the dead, which sadly now includes both her husband Adam, her lover Michael as well as the local vicar. Awkward. So begins a bizarre ménage-a-quatre, with Adam, Michael and the vicar all moving in, albeit in ghostly form, to Marley's home.
BAFTA-award winning drama from the BBC. The Miller's Tale: When smooth talking Nick arrives in a flash red sports car young wannabe pop star Alison thinks that her dreams have come true and incites the jealousy of her husband Dennis Waterman. The Wife Of Bath's Tale: Beth Craddock is a TV actress who still believes in Mr. Right even after a number of failed marriages. But is her dashing co-star Jerome her soulmate despite their large age difference. The Knight
Based on the best-selling novel, this adaptation about an Australian who has a baby with her aristocratic cad of a boyfriend is written and directed by newcomer Sara Suggarman, who has injected her own particular style into the film.
Cool and sophisticated Tolen has a monopoly on womanising - with a long line of conquests to prove it - while the naive and awkward Colin desperately wants a piece of it. But when Colin falls for an innocent country girl it's not long before the self assured Tolen moves in for the kill. Is all fair in love and war or can Colin get the knack and beat Tolen at his own game?
Leos Janacek: From The House Of The Dead, performed by various performers and conducted by Pierre Bouelz.
Chris Rock stars as Lance, a struggling Brooklyn comic who dies a moment too soon and is returned to earth in the body of Robert Wellington, a rich white man whose wife and lover are plotting to kill him.
The third release of the BFI's pioneering Adelphi Collection is a double bill showcasing two early films by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno Death on the Nile). The Crowded Day (1954) is an engaging bittersweet comedy-drama focusing on the intertwined lives of a group of shop girls working in a London department store in the 1950s with a wonderful cast including John Gregson Joan Rice Dora Bryan Thora Hird Prunella Scales Sid James and Dandy Nicholls; Song of Paris (1952) is a charming romantic comedy which sees an archetypal Englishman - suavely played by Dennis Price - return from a jaunt abroad to face a dastardly foreign Count in a duel for the hand of a beautiful mademoiselle.
John Cho and Kal Penn reprise their title roles in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, which picks up six years after their last adventure.
A special one-off comedy from Charlie Brooker, which spoofs the very best and worst of British crime dramas. An all-encompassing parody of every police procedural ever written. John Hannah plays DCI Jack Cloth - a maverick, heavy drinking loner who has thrown himself into his work following the mysterious death of his wife. The damaged, haunted Cloth is teamed with plucky no-nonsense sidekick DC Anne Oldman, played by Suranne Jones. Together the pair investigate a series of increasingly grisly murders and find themselves on the trail of a devious killer. As you do. If you're a detective. The case leads Cloth and Oldman from leafy forests to sinister lock-ups, from the luxury home of an arrogant TV chef to the cold dissection rooms of vampish forensic pathologist, packing in as many jokes as humanly possible along the way. Their boss repeatedly demands results, fast. No, faster than that. Faster! Slow down. Not that much. Hold it there. Yeah, precisely that fast...
Cynthia McKay is Lawton Hobbs' personal bodyguard. Hobbs is being threatened by Nina Lindell a seductress who had earlier killed McKay's lover.
Boasting a virtuoso comic performance from Leonard Rossiter The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1976-79) remains one of the greatest of all television sitcoms. Writer David Nobbs combined the surrealist absurdity of Monty Python with an on-going story line that unfolded through each of the three seasons with a clear beginning, middle and end; a ground-breaking development in 70s TV comedy. The first and best season charts middle-aged, middle-management executive Reginald Perrin as he breaks-down under the stress of middle-class life until he informs the world that half the parking meters in London have Dutch Parking Meter Disease. He fakes suicide and returns to court his wife Elizabeth (Pauline Yates) in disguise, a plot development that formed the entire basis of Mrs Doubtfire (1993). Series Two is broader, the rapid-fire dialogue still razor sharp and loaded with caustic wit and ingenious silliness, as a now sane Reggie takes on the madness of the business world by opening a chain of shops selling rubbish. The third season, set in a health farm, is routine, the edge blunted by routine sitcom conventions. At its best The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin is hilarious and moving, its depiction of English middle-class life spot on, its satire prophetic. Reggie's visual fantasies hark back to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Billy Liar (1963), and look forward to Ally McBeal (1997-2002) and are the icing on the cake of a fine, original and highly imaginative show. On the DVD: Reginald Perrin's discs contain one complete seven episode season. There are no extras. The sound is good mono and the 4:3 picture is generally fine, though some of the exterior shot-on-film scenes have deteriorated and there are occasional signs of minor damage to the original video masters. Even so, for a 1970s sitcom shot on video the picture is excellent and far superior to the original broadcasts. --Gary S Dalkin
Police Story 2 (1989) is one of those rare sequels that's more fun than its predecessor. Jackie Chan plays his usual rule-breaking cop, loyal to superiors that carp at the destruction he leaves in his wake but are prepared to take credit for every success he has. Here he finds himself up against vengeful gangsters whose plans he frustrated in the first of the series; but he also has to combat a ruthless team of extortionists with a taste for explosions both large and small--blowing up large buildings, turning people into human bombs and torturing people with firecrackers are all part of their repertoire. He has girlfriend trouble, too, since his fiancée is worried that he always puts the job first. Like its predecessor and the quasi-sequel First Strike (1996), Police Story 2 is transitional between Chan's early more fight-orientated Hong Kong movies and his later, blander Hollywood films. The fights and stunts here are most of the point of what is essentially a very good generic Jackie Chan vehicle; he takes on progressively larger groups of opponents, coping, for example, with a dozen gangsters armed with swords in a terraced garden by leaping from level to level and paying each opponent individual attention. The final fight in a fireworks factory is a Chan classic, depending as it does as much on the comedy of frustrating repetition as on daring stunts. --Roz Kaveney
This simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious play, from Booker Prize-winning author, David Storey, follows the interaction of five patients over the course of a single afternoon in the garden of what we can fairly assume is an English mental hospital. A classic pairing of two of the world's greatest English-speaking actors.
Six years have elapsed since Guantanemo Bay, leaving Harold and Kumar estranged from one another with very different families, friends and lives. But when Kumar arrives on Harold's doorstep during the holiday season with a mysterious package in hand, he inadvertently burns down Harold's father-in-law's beloved Christmas tree. To fix the problem, Harold and Kumar embark on a mission through New York City to find the perfect Christmas tree, once again stumbling into trouble at every single turn.
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