The years have endowed Saturday Night Fever with a powerful, elegiac quality since its explosive release in 1977. It was the must-see movie for a whole generation of adolescents, sparking controversy for rough language and clumsily realistic sex scenes which took teen cinema irrevocably into a new age. And of course, it revived the career of the Bee Gees to stratospheric heights, thanks to a justifiably legendary soundtrack which now embodies the disco age. But Saturday Night Fever was always more than a disco movie. Tony Manero is an Italian youth from Brooklyn straining at the leash to escape a life defined by his family, blue collar job and his gang. Disco provides the medium for him to break free. It was the snake-hipped dance routines which made John Travolta an immediate sex symbol. But seen today, his performance as Tony is compelling: rough-hewn, certainly, but complex and true, anticipating the fine screen actor he would be recognised as 20 years later. Scenes of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge, representing Tony's route to a bigger world, now have an added poignancy, adding to Saturday Night Fever's evocative power. It's a bittersweet classic. On the DVD: Saturday Night Fever is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack, both of which help to recapture the unique atmosphere of the late 1970s. The main extra is a director's commentary from John Badham, with detailed descriptions of casting and the improvisation behind many of the scenes, plus the unsavoury reality behind Travolta's iconic white disco suit. --Piers Ford
Jagged Edge was one of a series of entertaining if porous thrillers crafted by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas before he wrote the ridiculous Showgirls. This 1985 movie is a taut mystery about an attorney (Glenn Close) who defends a newspaper publisher (Jeff Bridges) accused of murder. The fact that Close's character falls for him is more convenient than plausible, but it is a necessary emotional bridge for Eszterhas and director Richard Marquand (Eye of the Needle) to build toward a powerful finale. Scary, fun as courtroom dramas go, the film is well serviced by the two lead stars and has impressive support from co-star Peter Coyote and especially from Robert Loggia, who plays Close's cop buddy. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
A warm Yuletide special, A Muppet Family Christmas pairs the Muppet gang with the perennial favourite Sesame Street cast for a seasonal celebration. With a blizzard brewing outside, Fozzie's childhood farmhouse on Christmas Eve becomes the backdrop for a medley of holiday tunes--eight in all--ranging from the Muppet band's rousing "Jingle Bell Rock" to Big Bird's sweet rendition of "The Christmas Song". Though the script meanders in part, the 42-minute programme shines as a musical revue, seasoned with quick-witted interludes by the culinary comedic Swedish Chef, slapstick odd couple Ernie and Bert, and the diva-like escapades of Miss Piggy. While lacking the irresistible sizzle of The Muppet Movie, the show's finale, which includes Kermit and Piggy under the mistletoe and a cameo appearance by Jim Henson, proves that nothing can dim the Muppets' appeal. --Lynn Gibson In the 50-minute Christmas TV Special, The Christmas Toy, Rugby the Tiger is Jamie's favourite Christmas toy from last year. Rugby is convinced that he will be wrapped up and placed under the tree again this year. When it's Christmas Eve and all the other toys try to explain to him that that is not going to happen, Rugby decides to take matters into his own paws and place himself under the tree. He makes the dangerous trip from the playroom to the living room trying not to be seen, for if a toy's secret of being able to move when humans aren't around is discovered, it becomes frozen forever. Now all his friends from the toy room must get him back before it's too late. This sweet story about friendship and loyalty is delightful, as are the songs, including "Try the Impossible" and "Old Friends". Think Toy Story with Muppetts. --Peggy Maltby-Etra
Grease (Dir. Randal Kleiser 1978): John Travolta solidified his position as the most versatile and magnetic screen presence of the decade in this film version of the smash hit play Grease. Recording star Olivia Newton-John made her American film debut as Sandy Travolta's naive love interest. The impressive supporting cast reads like a who's who in this quintessential musical about the fabulous '50's. Grease /b%3E is not just a nostalgic look at a simpler decade - it's an energetic and exciting musical homage to the age of rock n'roll! Saturday Night Fever (Dir. John Badham 1977): John Travolta gives a sensual and intelligent performance as the troubled Tony Manero - Brooklyn paint store clerk by day and undisputed king of the dance floor by night. Every Saturday Tony puts on his wide collared shirt flared trousers and platform shoes and heads out to the only place where he's seen as a god rather than some young punk. But in the darkness away from from the strobe lights and glitter ball is a tragic story of disillusionment violence and heartbreak. Without a doubt Travolta's performance made him a Hollywood legend but 'Saturday Night Fever' is more than just a movie that defined the music and fashion of a generation. It's a powerful and provocative urban tragedy that carries as much significance today as it did in 1977. Staying Alive (Dir. Sylvester Stallone 1983): Sequel to Saturday Night Fever /b%3E where Tony Manero older but not much wiser pursues his search for stardom on the Broadway stage...
Series three of this outstanding police procedural drama sees the role of Chief Constable passing from John Stafford (played by Tim Pigott-Smith) to former Metropolitan Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Cade (Martin Shaw - The Professionals Judge John Deed). This release contains all six episodes originally transmitted in 1993. As John Stafford takes up a new position with Europol Alan Cade replaces him as Chief Constable at Eastland East Anglia; Anne Stewart continues as Cade's deputy. While Cade is every bit as capable as his predecessor he finds that the challenge of frontline policing continues to be eclipsed by the pressure to manage ever-tighter budgets and justify expenditure. Sharing Stafford's tolerant but scrupulous approach he also faces ongoing conflict with his superiors and certain local politicians whose cavalier attitudes towards issues of civil liberties contrast sharply with his own.
German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff's 1985 production of Arthur Miller's most famous play Death of a Salesman appeared squarely and quite hauntingly in the middle of the go-go economy of the Reagan-Bush years. Miller's story, set during the post-war boom period of the late 1940s, concerns an ageing travelling salesman named Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman), who despairs that his life his been lived in vain. Facing dispensability and insignificance in a heated, youthful economy, Willy is not ready to part with his cherished fantasies of an America that loves and admires him for personable triumphs in the marketplace. But the reality is far more pitiable than that, and the measure of Willy's self-delusion and contradictions is found in his two sons, one (Stephen Lang) a ne'er-do-well gliding on inherited hot air and repressed feelings, and the other (John Malkovich) a mousy, retiring sort unable to reconcile--or forgive--the difference between his father's desperate impersonation of success and the truth. Schlöndorff's remarkable cast explores Miller's rich subtext to great effect, though Hoffman--despite giving us a new model of Willy to contrast with Lee J Cobb's definitive portrayal a generation before--is a bit insect-like and shrill in his approach. Malkovich, Lang, and Kate Reid (as Willy's long-suffering wife) are perfect, however, and the production is atmospheric and strong. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Perhaps no movie could capture F Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby in its entirety, but this adaptation, scripted by Francis Ford Coppola, is certainly a handsome try, putting costume design and art direction above the intricacies of character. Robert Redford is an interesting casting choice as Gatsby, the millionaire isolated in his mansion, still dreaming of the woman he lost. And Sam Waterston is perfect as the narrator, Nick, who brings the dream girl Daisy Buchanan back to Gatsby. The problem seems to be that director Jack Clayton fell in love with the flapper dresses and the party scenes and the jazz age tunes, ending up with a Classics Illustrated version of a great book rather than a fresh, organic take on the text. While Redford grows more quietly intriguing in the film, Mia Farrow's pallid performance as Daisy leaves you wondering why Gatsby, or anyone else, should care so much about his grand passion. The effective supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Daisy's husband, and Scott Wilson and Karen Black as the low-rent couple whose destinies cross the sun-drenched protagonists. (That's future star Patsy Kensit as Daisy's little daughter.) The film won two Oscars--not surprisingly, for costumes and musical score. --Robert Horton
Robert Redford is Jay Gatsby the dashing enigmatic millionaire obsessed with the elusive and spoilt Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow) in an era in which recklessness with money liquor women and fast cars pervaded the American consciousness...
All 11 episodes of the brand-new series on 3-disc DVD. Set in 1920s Toronto, Frankie Drake Mysteries follows the city's only female private detectives as they take on cases the police don't want to touch. In a time of change and hopefulness, their gender is their biggest advantage as they defy expectations and rebel against convention. The Drake Private Detectives take on cases that explore every cross-section of Toronto, from gospel church choirs, bathing beauties, and the early cinema scene, to the homes and private parties of the city's elite. Frankie and Trudy's fearless sense of adventure gets them into all kinds of trouble, but they always manage to find a way out. They are new detectives for a new world - but is the world ready for them? Includes subtitles for the Hard of Hearing
A sudden storm brings a shower of polluted rain and in a downtown cemetery something stirs six feet under the earth. The bad news is the living dead are back. The worse news is that they haven't had a decent meal in years... and as anybody will tell you there's nothing as greedy as a ghoul with a taste for human brains. 'Return Of The Living Dead' is a special effects masterpiece and has its rotting tongue firmly in its ghoulish green cheek.
With John Woo having transformed himself into a blockbuster hack for hire, and Jackie Chan cracking jokes in no-brainer films like Rush Hour, it might be worth remembering how both got their kick-start in Hollywood: through the stripped-down mayhem of the Hong Kong action flick, of which Black Mask is very possibly the greatest example of recent times. Easy-going librarian (no, we're not making this up) Michael (Jet Li, now successfully carving out a career in the US himself in such films as Lethal Weapon 4) has a secret. Prior to securing his job among the dusty hardbacks, Michael was a "701", a genetically engineered superman created by the authorities to help fight crime. The trouble is, the rest of his old compadres have now gone mad, and are busy taking over the local crime and drug scenes. Cue, of course, some explosions, some gunplay and an awful lot of exquisitely choreographed fight scenes, which is where Li, notwithstanding the occasional crafty one-liner, does what he does: cracking heads like some kind of intensely hard ballerina. As he pirouettes effortlessly atop a series of girders on a downtown building site, it's hard not to feel a quiet sense of awe--even among viewers for whom an ability to render one's enemies unconscious with one's feet isn't the first thing we look for in a movie star. Brutal, minimalist and expertly made, Black Mask is a masterpiece of the genre. --Danny Leigh
When her sister is taken by a gang of white slavers, Margaret (Karen Kopins, Troop Beverly Hills) knows she needs a hero with a difference to bring her home. Enter Jake Speed (Wayne Crawford, Barracuda), leaping from the pages of pulp thriller novels and into the real world. With Margaret in tow and his trusty sidekick Desmond Floyd (Dennis Christopher, Chariots of Fire) in tow, Jake arrives hot on the heels of the kidnappers in a southern African country gripped by civil war. But it soon turns out Jake got more than he bargained for when he discovers that the ringleader of the slavers is none other than his own arch-nemesis: the wicked, criminally insane Sid (John Hurt, Alien, The Osterman Weekend) A ripe slice of '80s action cheese in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Romancing the Stone, Jake Speed has it all: romance, death-defying stunts, spellbinding scenery shot on location in Zimbabwe and best of all, a wickedly off-the-wall performance by the late John Hurt, proving the old adage that a hero is nothing without a worthy foe. Features: High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation Original lossless 2.0 stereo audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Paperback Wishes, Cinematic Dreams, a new interview with co-writer/producer/director Andrew Lane The Hard Way Reads Better, a new interview with producer William Fay Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing by Mark Cunliffe
A boy with no immunity lives in an isolation bubble. A girl brings brightness into his closet world and forces him to choose between life or love & death. From the Director of 'Grease'.
The third case of the award-winning crime comedy sees DCI Jack Cloth (John Hannah) and DC Anne Oldman (Suranne Jones) reunited in a murder investigation and this time it's personal. A sexy female rookie, Newblood (Karen Gillan), has joined Cloth's team. At her first crime scene the team discover the body of Cloth's brother, Terry Cloth (John Hannah). Cloth traces Terry's past back to a remote therapy centre, The Healery, but Cloth believes this is a cult and suspects Vull (Adrian Dunbar), the.
Universally recognised as the Master of Suspense, the legendary Alfred Hitchcock directed some of cinema's most thrilling and unforgettable classics. The House of Hitchcock features 18 iconic films from the acclaimed director's illustrious career including Psycho, The Birds, Rear Window, Vertigo and North by Northwest, plus a range of limited edition extras including blueprints of the infamous Psycho House, original storyboards from some of his finest movies, movie poster artcards for all the films, and a booklet about the man himself. Includes: SABOTEUR SHADOW OF A DOUBT ROPE STRANGERS ON A TRAIN DIAL M FOR MURDER REAR WINDOW TO CATCH A THIEF THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH VERTIGO NORTH BY NORTHWEST PSYCHO (1960) THE BIRDS MARNIE TORN CURTAIN TOPAZ FRENZY FAMILY PLOT Bonus features: DOCUMENTARIES EXPERT COMMENTARIES INTERVIEWS SCREEN TESTS STORYBOARDS AND MUCH MORE! Plus: ORIGINAL LETTERS, STORYBOARDS, BLUEPRINTS AND MORE...
It took them 20 years to fall in love at first sight: two strangers whose paths are always crossing finally meet when fate steps in.
Shortly after moving to Dallas, a young woman is raped at gunpoint. Her intense anger drives her to seek revenge, and she becomes a hunter on a vengeance mission.
The Chief: Series 1 (2 Discs)
veral lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives.
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