What's the worst that could happen? Probably being forced to watch What's the Worst That Could Happen? from start to finish without a pause button: it's more lame than a three-legged dog. The plot is straightforward enough: two men, each as crooked as the other, come into conflict when petty thief Kevin Caffrey (Martin Lawrence) breaks into the apparently unoccupied beach house of wealthy and unscrupulous businessman Max Fairbanks (Danny DeVito). The house turns out not to be empty: Fairbanks calls the cops, claims that Caffrey has stolen his ring and coolly claims it back in front of his uniformed audience. It's a ring that Caffrey values because it has just been given to him by his new girlfriend Amber (Carmen Ejogo). He's so desperate to get it back that he hounds Fairbanks through the rest of the film, breaking into various Fairbanks properties as he goes. Words like "zany" and "madcap" could be used in the interests of charity, but actually the film falls flat on its face. Lawrence is certainly no Eddie Murphy and the plot would need an injection of major talent to give it a chance. DeVito yet again relies on his stature to provide the laughs. John Leguizamo plays Caffrey's sidekick as best he can but the fake sheikhs-in-tea-towels scene induces more groans than laughs. This is one for diehard fans of the lead actors only. On the DVD: What's the Worst That Could Happen? comes to DVD with a choice of two spoken languages (English or French) and many subtitle options. There's also a generous selection of outtakes, an alternative ending, a music video ("Music" by Erick Sermon) and the original theatrical trailer. It's just a shame that the film itself isn't better. --Harriet Smith
Although the superhero comic book has been a duopoly since the early 1960s, only DC's flagship characters, Superman and Batman (who originated in the late 1930s) have established themselves as big-screen franchises. Until now--this is the first runaway hit film version of the alternative superhero X-Men universe created for Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others. It's a rare comic-book movie that doesn't fall over its cape introducing all the characters, and this is the exception. X-Men drops us into a world that is closer to our own than Batman's Gotham City, but it's still home to super-powered goodies and baddies. Opening in high seriousness with paranormal activity in a WW2 concentration camp and a senatorial inquiry into the growing "mutant problem", Bryan Singer's film sets up a complex background with economy and establishes vivid, strange characters well before we get to the fun. There's Halle Berry flying and summoning snowstorms, James Marsden zapping people with his "optic beams", Rebecca Romijn-Stamos shape-shifting her blue naked form, and Ray Park lashing out with his Toad-tongue. The big conflict is between Patrick Stewart's Professor X and Ian McKellen's Magneto, super-powerful mutants who disagree about their relationship with ordinary humans, but the characters we're meant to identify with are Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (who has retractable claws and amnesia), and Anna Paquin's Rogue (who sucks the life and superpowers out of anyone she touches). The plot has to do with a big gizmo that will wreak havoc at a gathering of world leaders, but the film is more interested in setting up a tangle of bizarre relationships between even more bizarre people, with solid pros such as Stewart and McKellen relishing their sly dialogue and the newcomers strutting their stuff in cool leather outfits. There are in-jokes enough to keep comics' fans engaged, but it feels more like a science fiction movie than a superhero picture. --Kim Newman
Mystic Pizza (Dir. Donald Petrie 1998): Filled with heart and humour Mystic Pizza charts the lives and loves of three unforgettable waitresses in a little town called Mystic. Starring Julia Roberts Annabeth Gish and Lili Taylor Mystic Pizza has all the right ingredients of a main course favourite. For sexy Daisy Araujo (Roberts) her sensible sister Kat (Gish) and their wisecracking friend Jojo (Taylor) the summer after high school is a summer they'll never forget. Slinging pizza at a local restaurant the three girls share their plans for escaping their small town. And when a wealthy young man named Charles sweeps Daisy off her feet they all think she's found her ticket out. But when the girls learn that Charles isn't the man they think he is they discover that with friendship and self-respect not only will they find real happiness (and a way out of Mystic)... they just might find themselves. Dying Young (Dir. Joel Schumacher 1991): With little money a poor education and no luck when it comes to love Hilary O'Neil (Roberts) answers a wanted ad and finds her whole world suddenly changed. Hired as the caretaker to a seriously ill young man (Scott) she unexpectedly discovers they have much in common even though he is wealthy and intelligent. Their growing friendship quietly develops into a deep and powerful romance that ultimately tests the boundaries of true love... Sleeping With The Enemy (Dir. Joseph Ruben 1990): When Laura married Martin she had no way of knowing the depth of his passion for her. On the outside they are the ideal couple. The beautiful and perfect housewife. The handsome successful and seductive husband. But things are not as they appear to be. Inside is a woman living a terrifying secret. And to escape from her nightmare she will risk everything - even her life. Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergin star in the passionate and dangerous thriller - Sleeping With The Enemy.
A freak rainstorm washes up a gruesome discovery - a bag containing seven severed children's hands each with a number tattooed on its tiny palm. A psychiatric expert's only clue comes from the disturbing behaviour of a mute patient who seems to have a telepathic link with killer's warped mind...
Dr. Nina Moss seems to have it all - a successful practise as a therapist and a close relationship with her teenage daughter Beth. But Beth's life is spiralling out of control trying to cope with the changes to her body and the pressure at school prove too much for her. Although she is intelligent and talented she soon begins to withdraw and Nina is unaware that her daughter is going through a life-threatening crisis. One day Beth collapses at school and the horrifying truth of wh
Dr. Nina Moss seems to have it all - a successful practise as a therapist and a close relationship with her teenage daughter, Beth. But Beth's life is spiralling out of control, trying to cope with the changes to her body, and the pressure at school prove too much for her. Although she is intelligent and talented, she soon begins to withdraw and Nina is unaware that her daughter is going through a life-threatening crisis. One day Beth collapses at school and the horrifying truth of what she i...
Danielle Steel is one of the best-selling authors of all-time and now you can enjoy this box set featuring three movie adaptations of some of her best known novels. Daddy (Dir. Michael Miller 1991): Patrick Duffy and Linda Carter star in this highly emotional story of love loss and rediscovered happiness. Oliver is a top advertising executive who seems to have it all - a beautiful wife three great children and a lovely home. But one fateful day his wife announces she i
Norman Wisdom reprises his best-loved character, the comically inept Pitkin, in 1965's The Early Bird, ably supported once again by Edward Chapman in his final appearance as Mr Grimsdale. This time around Wisdom is the only milkman working for Grimsdale's Dairy, a small business threatened by a menacing large corporation in the shape of Consolidated Dairies and their electric milk floats. Grimsdale and Pitkin must evoke the Dunkirk spirit to save their family firm from the grasp of the faceless giant. Of course, the wafer-thin plot is the merest excuse for a series of calamitous set pieces in which Wisdom wreaks havoc in his trademark bumbling manner. The best bits involve a disastrous game of golf, the usual shenanigans with a fire hose and a virtuoso tour de force opening sequence as the household struggles to wake up in the morning, all set to Ron Goodwin's tongue-in-cheek music score. --Mark Walker In Press for Time Norman Wisdom offered his version of the crusading reporter movie, though by 1966 time was running out for Norman's style of big-screen comedy. Perhaps a sign of his growing frustration with the formulaic nature of his pictures was that he stretched himself to play not just his usual underdog hero, but also his own mother and his grandfather, the Prime Minister. Wisdom also cowrote the movie in which, as a reporter in a small seaside town, he causes chaos for the council, organises a beauty parade and dresses as a suffragette. Though now nearing the end of his years as a movie star, Wisdom shows himself to still be as polished as ever at his own brand of good-natured slapstick. --Gary S Dalkin
In 1930's China Ping (Chow Yun-Fat) known as the ""King Of Killers"" renounces his murderous way after his precious wife is caught up in a gun battle and loses her life. Heartbroken Ping puts away his six shooters and establishes the 'Peace Hotel' promising protection and safe passage to all the visitors under his roof. For a decade his golden rule holds firm. That is until the mysterious appearance of a beautiful young woman whose beauty and hidden agenda threatens to break his
A chilling psychological horror film from Hong Kong about a blind girl, who soon regrets her corrective corneal surgery operation as she starts to see images which are not her own...
When this epic series was first broadcast in 1973 it redefined the gold standard for television documentary; it remains the benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself. Originally shown as 26 one-hour programmes, The World at War set out to tell the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each hour-long programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's downfall and the onset of the Cold War. There are no academic "talking heads" here to spell out an official version of history; the narration, delivered with wonderful gravitas by Sir Laurence Olivier, is kept to a minimum. The show's great coup was to allow the participants to speak for themselves. Painstaking research in the archives of the Imperial War Museum also unearthed a vast quantity of newsreel footage, including on occasion the cameraman's original raw rushes which present an unvarnished and never-before-seen picture of important events. Carl Davis' portentous main title theme and score underlines the grand scale of the enterprise. The original 26 episodes were supplemented three years later by six special programmes (narrated by Eric Porter), bringing the total running-time to a truly epic 32 hours. Now digitally remastered The World at War looks even more of an impressive achievement on DVD. Available in five volumes, each handsomely packaged double-disc set comes with a detailed menu that places the individual programmes along a chronological timeline. Better yet, chapter access is laid out to allow you to select key speeches or maps or newsreel footage. The World at War was a landmark television event; its DVD incarnation underlines its importance as an historical document. --Mark Walker
When this epic series was first broadcast in 1973 it redefined the gold standard for television documentary; it remains the benchmark by which all factual programming must judge itself. Originally shown as 26 one-hour programmes, The World at War set out to tell the story of the Second World War through the testimony of key participants. The result is a unique and unrepeatable event, since many of the eyewitnesses captured on film did not have long left to live. Each hour-long programme is carefully structured to focus on a key theme or campaign, from the rise of Nazi Germany to Hitler's downfall and the onset of the Cold War. There are no academic "talking heads" here to spell out an official version of history; the narration, delivered with wonderful gravitas by Sir Laurence Olivier, is kept to a minimum. The show's great coup was to allow the participants to speak for themselves. Painstaking research in the archives of the Imperial War Museum also unearthed a vast quantity of newsreel footage, including on occasion the cameraman's original raw rushes which present an unvarnished and never-before-seen picture of important events. Carl Davis' portentous main title theme and score underlines the grand scale of the enterprise. The original 26 episodes were supplemented three years later by six special programmes (narrated by Eric Porter), bringing the total running-time to a truly epic 32 hours. Now digitally remastered The World at War looks even more of an impressive achievement on DVD. Available in five volumes, each handsomely packaged double-disc set comes with a detailed menu that places the individual programmes along a chronological timeline. Better yet, chapter access is laid out to allow you to select key speeches or maps or newsreel footage. The World at War was a landmark television event; its DVD incarnation underlines its importance as an historical document. --Mark Walker
Waking the Dead, like director-writer Keith Gordon's earlier films (The Chocolate War, A Midnight Clear, Mother Night), is based on a well-regarded modern novel (by Scott Spencer) and has a great many quiet virtues: a genuine engagement with near-contemporary America, complicated characters well-played by a cast of perfectly selected not-quite-star performers and a questioning approach that sits ill with the too-easy answers of most contemporary films. The complex story opens in 1974 with the death in a car bomb explosion of Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly), a radical working with a faction of left-wing Catholics to rescue dissidents from Chile. This has a devastating effect on her straighter boyfriend, Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup), who is working within the system with an eye on rising in the Democratic Party through the patronage of a senior figure (Hal Holbrook), the man who is eventually to become the President. We flash back to 1972 and Fielding's intense relationship with Sarah, marked by romantic and political differences that feel far more real than the contrived oppositional arguments in most political movies. Then skip 10 years forward to find a sleeker, hollow-faced Fielding running for Congress, tormented not only by memories of Sarah but her actual or phantasmal appearances. Another film might play this as a paranoid mystery thriller, but this goes for psychology, and Crudup delivers an intense portrait of a man cracking up by the loss of his ideals as much as his life's love--climaxing in a terrific restaurant outburst to his needy, congratulatory family. Unreleased theatrically in the UK, this outstanding film has award-quality performances from Crudup and Connelly, both doing their best screen work to date. On the DVD: The picture is presented in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby Digital sound. You get the usual trailer, filmographies and puff piece featurette, but also three superb extras: a commentary from Gordon that passionately and intelligently addresses the thematic material and production circumstances of the film; a package of deleted scenes that goes well beyond the usual irrelevant snippets--everything here offers additional insights into the plot and character; tracks from the composers Tomandandy which play over the menus--a rare feature that's liable to become more common. --Kim Newman
Step back in time and see how people lived and worked, from life on the farm and in the village to the changes of the 'Swinging Sixties'
Wanted: Intergalactic couple seeks romance + possibly more w/nubile SWF. We're a real pair! He's an NSGEM (Non-Smoking, Green-Eyed Monster). She's a SCECLS (Scantily Clad, Egg-Carrying Love Slave). You're eager to get nekkid, have an IQ that resembles a Celsius temp. reading, and reside at an unnamed female college filled w/randy staffers & idiotic administration. First date w/us includes attempts at terrorisation & you being encased in a monster semen chrysalis. May include zombification. Interested? Wander down to the local sewers--we'll be waiting! (No boyfriends (except as HDs [hors d'oeuvres]) or STDs (space-transmitted diseases).) --Keith Simanton, Amazon.com
A man who has been invalided out of the Army takes a teaching position at the Bamfylde School during the First World War. Drama based on the novel by R.F. Delderfield.
James Bond (Roger Moore) may have met his match in Francisco Scaramanga (Christopher Lee) a world-renowned assassin whose weapon of choice is a distinctive gold pistol. When Scaramanga seizes the priceless Solex Agitator energy converter Agent 007 must recover the device and confront the trained killer in a heart-stopping duel to the death!
A coldblooded management consultant infamous for downsizing every firm he comes into contact with re-examines his own morals and values when his latest assignment puts him face to face with those affected by such actions.
Former G.I. Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) is a tyro trucker bent on satisfaction from the man responsible for crippling his father: ruthless market operator Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb). Along the way he is seduced by siren Rica (Valentina Cortesa) and drawn into the San Francisco produce racket landing him in a web of treachery and heartbreak...
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