Dances with Wolves is the film that sent director-producer-actor Kevin Costner on his hubristic way; yet it is such a resonant and powerful film that we can almost forgive him for inflicting upon us his later "epic" The Postman. Here Costner plays a Union solder stationed at the far edges of the West, and left there to rot at his post. He finally sees the wisdom of the Lakota Sioux and finds peace within their community. But his decision to "go native" is greatly frowned upon by his military commanders, and the subsequent culture clash forms the backbone of the narrative. The story is told simply, and wastes not one word of dialogue, while the South Dakota locations provide a magnificent backdrop. Costner is sympathetic and accessible as an American Everyman who awakens to himself and the world around him... --Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon.com
In Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg plays a Reno lounge singer who hides out as a nun when her villainous boyfriend (Harvey Keitel) goes gunning for her. Maggie Smith is the mother superior who has to cope with Whoopi's unorthodox behaviour, but the cute script turns the tables and shows the latter energising the stodgy convent with song and attitude. A real crowd-pleaser and a perfect vehicle for Goldberg, this is a happy experience all around. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com Whoopi Goldberg returns in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, a gratuitous, poorly written sequel that contrives a reason to get her character back into Maggie Smith's convent. The "socially conscious" plot finds Goldberg being asked to relate to a bunch of street kids and pull them together into a choir. Since a bad guy is needed, the script grabs that old chestnut about a rich guy (James Coburn) preparing to close down the convent's school, and runs with it. The film is slow and unconvincing from start to finish, although co-stars Mary Wickes and Kathy Najimy get some good laughs, and the music is pretty spirited. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Daryl (Barret Oliver) is the kind of boy any youngster would love to be like - and any mother would want as her son. He is a whiz at school. brilliant at computer games and sports - and even tidies his room! To his foster-parents, he is the perfect kid - perhaps too perfect...What is Daryl's secret? Why can't he remember anything about his past... yet in the present, he goes beyond even genius levels of intelligence. The shocking truth is revealed the day his real parents turn up to claim him and his perfect, ordinary life is threatened by adults bent on his 'destruction'.
Based on an unpublished novella by John Steinbeck (written on commission expressly to provide treatment material for Hitchcock's screen scenario), Lifeboat found the Master of Suspense navigating a course of maximal tension - in the most minimal of settings - with a consistently inventive, beautifully paced drama that would foreshadow the single-set experiments of Rope and Dial M for Murder. After a Nazi torpedo reduces an ocean liner to wooden splinters and scorched personal effects, the survivors of the attack pull themselves aboard a drifting lifeboat in the hope of eventual rescue. But the motivations of the German submarine captain (played by Walter Slezak) on the eponymous craft might extend beyond mere survival... With a cast including Shadow of a Doubt veteran Hume Cronyn and the extraordinary, irrepressible Tallulah Bankhead, this picture of characters, as Franois Truffaut aptly termed the film, oscillates dazzlingly between comic reparte and white-knuckle suspense - a perfect example of the Hitchcock touch.
He can't be kept a secret any longer He's smart, nice, liked by all. Why is he targeted for destruction? Daryl (Barret Oliver) is the kind of boy any youngster would love to be like- and any mother would want as her son. He is a whiz at school, brilliant at computer games and sports- and even tidies his room! To his foster parents, he is the perfect kid- perhaps too perfect What is Daryl's secret? Why can't he remember anything about his past yet in the present, he goes beyond even genius levels of intelligence. The shocking truth is revealed the day his real parents turn up to claim him and his perfect ordinary life is threatened by adults bent on his destruction'.
Based on a real life series of murders in 1970’s Pennsylvania AT CLOSE RANGE is a chilling portrayal of a family’s life of crime. Starring CHRISTOPHER WALKEN (Catch Me If You Can True Romance) and SEAN PENN (The Thin Red Line Dead Man Walking). When young Brad Whitewood Jr’s (PENN) wayward father wanders back into his life he is attracted by his dangerous dad’s criminal activities. Soon Brad Jr and his half brother (played by Penn’s real life broth
These are not your ordinary wereolf stories! A three part anthology in gothic urban and sci-fi milieu titled 'Blood Reunion' 'Old Blood' and 'Manbeast'.
Kevin Costner's 1990 epic won a bundle of Oscars for a moving, engrossing story of a white soldier (Costner) who singlehandedly mans a post in the 1870 Dakotas, and becomes a part of the Lakota Sioux community who live nearby. The film may not be a masterpiece, but it is far more than the sum of good intentions. The characters are strong, the development of relationships is both ambitious and careful, the love story between Costner and Mary McDonnell's character is captivating. Only the third-act portrait of white intruders as morons feels overbearing, but even that leads to a terribly moving conclusion. Costner's direction is assured, the balance of action and intimacy is perfect--what more could anyone want outside of an unqualified masterpiece? --Tom Keogh
In nineteenth century middle-Europe orphaned teenage twins Maria and Frieda go to live with their uncle Gustav Weil who heads the Brotherhood a vigilante group trying to stamp out vampirism. But their methods are random and misplaced and the only result is a terrorised populace. The real threat lies with Count Karnstein and although the twins seem outwardly to be identical Frieda finds herself much more drawn than her sister to the Count's castle dominating the skyline.
Marlon Brando in his breakthrough and most iconic role as Johnny Strabler, ruthless leader of the Black Rebels motorcycle gang who terrorise a small town. Based on real-life events, the film was considered so shocking and inciteful of delinquent behaviour at the time, it was banned in the UK until 1967. Special Features High Definition remaster Original mono audio Audio commentary by author and film historian Jeanine Basinger The Wild One and the BBFC (2017, 25 mins): ex-BBFC examiner Richard Falcon discusses the film's history with the British censor Introduction to the film by Karen Kramer (2007, 1 min) Hollister, California: Bikers, Booze and the Big Picture (2007, 28 mins): a look back at the real life events that inspired the film Brando: An Icon Is Born (2007, 19 mins): a documentary exploring the life and career of the legendary actor Super 8 version (1973, 19 mins): original cut-down home cinema presentation with unique narration Original theatrical trailer Image gallery New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
An enigmatic stranger with uncanny magical prowess and miraculous psychic abilities mysteriously comes to 'visit' a powerful politician and quickly gains a spell-binding hold over the senator and his family... Magic Murder Mystery.... Nothing is as it appears to be....
This is the definitive set of interviews with the team of actors who brought the TOM BAKER era of DOCTOR WHO to life! These six documentaries are the best in-depth interviews with TOM BAKER (the Fourth Doctor), ELISABETH SLADEN (Sarah Jane), IAN MARTER (Harry), LOUISE JAMESON (Leela), MARY TAMM (Romana) and JOHN LEESON (Voice of K9)! Presented by voice of the Daleks NICHOLAS BRIGGS. For all DOCTOR Who fans, this 2 DISC special collector s edition is 5 hours of pure nostalgia, which will give you a whole new insight into the making of your favourite science fiction series! SPECIAL FEATURE: Introduction by NICHOLAS BRIGGS & Producer KEITH BARNFATHER
Longing for a romantic Hollywood film that will make your heart leap but not have you reaching for the sick bucket? Try Benny & Joon. Few mainstream US films manage to walk the thin line between emotion and schmaltz, but here is one film that pulls it off admirably. In the wrong hands the concept of marrying love and mental illness could have been a disaster but, as with the low-budget British film Some Voices, Benny & Joon manages to extract genuine humour and warmth from the subject. As the brother and sister of the title, the relationship between Aidan Quinn and Mary Stuart Masterson is central to the story, Benny desperately trying to keep home and job together while looking after the sick Joon. Their lives take an unexpected turn with the arrival of Sam, a brilliantly comic turn by Johnny Depp, as gradually the characters learn that the happiness that all thought beyond them is within their grasp. Depp adds yet another character to his liturgy of slightly odd outsiders but plays it with such panache, this time drawing heavily on Buster Keaton, that you cannot help but fall for him. Indeed, there is not a single character here that you would not wish well. On the DVD: The usual scene selection and a very clear audio track, given the film's musical moments a huge boost. Few will probably be able to resist The Proclaimers' "(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles" which opens the film. Excellent picture quality too. --Phil Udell
Whoopi Goldberg returns in a gratuitous, poorly written sequel that contrives a reason to get her character back into Maggie Smith's convent. The "socially conscious" plot finds Goldberg being asked to relate to a bunch of street kids and pull them together into a choir. Since a bad guy is needed, the script grabs that old chestnut about a rich guy (James Coburn) preparing to close down the convent's school, and runs with it. The film is slow and unconvincing from start to finish, although co-stars Mary Wickes and Kathy Najimy get some good laughs, and the music is pretty spirited. --Tom Keogh
There have been many film and TV adaptations of Oliver Twist but this 1948 production from director David Lean remains the definitive screen interpretation of the Charles Dickens classic. From the ominous symbolism of its opening storm sequence (in which Oliver's pregnant, ill-fated mother struggles to reach shelter before childbirth) to the mob-scene climax that provokes Bill Sikes's dreadful comeuppance, this breathtaking black-and-white film remains loyal to Dickens while distilling the story into its purest cinematic essence.Every detail is perfect--Lean even includes a coffin-shaped snuffbox for the cruel Mr. Sowerberry--and as young Oliver, eight-year-old John Howard Davies (who would later produce Monty Python's Flying Circus for the BBC) perfectly expresses the orphan's boyish wonderment, stern determination and waifish vulnerability. Best of all is Alec Guinness as Fagin, so devious and yet so delightfully appealing under his beak-nosed (and, at the time, highly controversial) make-up. (Many complained that Fagin's huge nose and greedy demeanour presented an anti-Semitic stereotype, even though Lean never identifies Fagin as Jewish; for this reason, the film wasn't shown in the US until three years after its British release.) Likewise, young Anthony Newley is artfully dodgy as Fagin's loyal accomplice, the Artful Dodger. Guinness's performance would later provide strong inspiration for Ron Moody's equally splendid portrayal of Fagin in the Oscar-winning Oliver! and while that 1968 musical remains wonderfully entertaining, it is Lean's film that hews closest to Dickens' vision. The authentic recreation of 19th-century London is marvellous to behold; Guy Green's cinematography is so shadowy and stylised that it almost qualifies as Dickensian film noir. Lean is surprisingly blunt in conveying Dickens's theme of cruelty but his film never loses sight of the warmth and humanity that Oliver embodies. --Jeff Shannon
The Maltese Falcon is still the tightest, sharpest, and most cynical of Hollywood's official deathless classics, bracingly tough even by post-Tarantino standards. Humphrey Bogart is Dashiell Hammett's definitive private eye, Sam Spade, struggling to keep his hard-boiled cool as the double-crosses pile up around his ankles. The plot, which dances all around the stolen Middle Eastern statuette of the title, is too baroque to try to follow, and it doesn't make a bit of difference. The dialogue, much of it lifted straight from Hammett, is delivered with whip-crack speed and sneering ferocity, as Bogie faces off against Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet, fends off the duplicitous advances of Mary Astor, and roughs up a cringing "gunsel" played by Elisha Cook Jr. It's an action movie of sorts, at least by implication: the characters always seem keyed up, right on the verge of erupting into violence. This is a turning-point picture in several respects: John Huston (The African Queen) made his directorial debut here in 1941, and Bogart, who had mostly played bad guys, was a last-minute substitution for George Raft, who must have been kicking himself for years afterward. This is the role that made Bogart a star and established his trend-setting (and still influential) antihero persona. --David Chute END
Sister Act: A Hilariously Divine Comedy!"" -ABC Radio Network. Relive all the fun laughter and irresistible music of Sister Act - the inspired comedy hit that packed pews everywhere! Whoopi Goldberg stars as a sassy low-rent lounge singer forced to hide out from the mob in the last place anyone would ever look for her - a convent. While she's there her irreverent behavior attracts a flock of faithful followers and turns the nuns' tone-deaf choir into a soulful chorus of swin
Teenage sisters Charli and Lola are on the verge of an experience beyond their wildest dreams! Pack your bags and jet off to Rome as the girls start their summer internship working for the legendary Derek Hanson - the totally cool international tycoon whose empire reaches from airlines to cutting-edge fashion. Amid the fabulous sights of this exciting city the girls do their best to impress their boss while still finding time to design their own line of very hip clothing meet some
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