Highly acclaimed eleven-part series directed by Edgar Reitz, originally produced for German television over a two-year period at the beginning of the 1980s. The series chronicles over 60 years of turbulent German history from 1919 to 1982, including the economic meltdown that followed World War 1, the rise and fall of the Nazis and World War 2, and the subsequent rebuilding of Germany in two halves, East and West. The tale unfolds in a small fictional rural village and follows the fortunes of a woman called Maria (Marita Breuer) who at the start of the series is a young girl, and by the end is an old woman who has lived to tell the tale of some of history's harshest moments. The series won the International Critics' Prize at the 1984 Venice Film Festival.
A two-part US TV miniseries here edited into a 122-minute feature, Asteroid was originally rushed onto (television) screens in 1996, well before the one-two big screen punch of Deep Impact and Armageddon. Single mum-cum-astronomy boffin Dr Lily McKee (Annabella Sciorra) works out that a comet is about to divert a meteor shower towards Earth ("at its present rate, Helios would hit with the force of a thousand Hiroshimas and the heat of the Sun") and spends the first half of the film alerting the authorities to the danger, and the second half helping rugged rescue guy Jack Wallach (Michael Biehn) haul survivors out from under the rubble caused when a bunch of minor asteroids collide with the planet (well, America); all while as the usual shenanigans go on to cope with the big, preventable chunk. The script explains everything in children's science lecture terms ("Mom, are we going to die like the dinosaurs?" "I don't think so, honey, we're much smarter than the dinosaurs") and is written in pure comforting cliché-speak ("I'm sure she's serious, but is she for real?"). With its hymn to the quick-thinking authorities and intently cooperating heroes, this may be the most pro-Establishment disaster film ever made: only a few panicky civilians cause any trouble, and we need plot contrivances to get made-for-TV he-man Biehn into danger as he outruns a flood in Kansas City or searches for the heroine's missing kid (Zachary B Charles) in the burning wreckage of Dallas. A large supporting cast of no-name labcoats, uniforms and victims clutter up the screen between the effects. Of course, this can't compete with its big-screen counterparts, but it did get there first, coopting the CGI and modelwork techniques of Independence Day to the rock-from-space sub-genre (cf: Meteor) as cities are smashed, crowds submerged, the planet battered and multitudes saved to order. --Kim Newman
Ronald Neame directs this perceptive comic study of the struggle of artistic creation, based on the novel by Joyce Cary. Starring Alec Guinness, who also wrote the screenplay, the film tells the story of Gulley Jimson (Guinness), an ageing and impoverished London painter who is rude, uncouth, eccentric and obsessed with his work to the point where nothing and nobody can come between him and his artistic passion.
Be afraid... Be twice as afraid! Troll: When an evil troll named Torok attempts to bring about cataclysmic changes that will forever erase mankind an ancient sorceress and a young boy join forces to stop him before he can carry out his diabolical plan. Troll II: Trolls live in the woods around Nibog and feed on the town's population. By transforming themselves into people the trolls are able to come into town and pick their menu. This summer their prey is the Waits
Professor Peter Williams is obsessed with USS LIONFISH, a WWII US Navy submarine that was mysteriously and suddenly chained, welded shut, sealed and locked to a pier in 1943. Forced to resign from the Navy as a young man due to his obsession with the case, one evening, years later, he receives a visit from a Navy official. With a top secret research team, Peter is asked to descend into the deep and board the submarine for the first time in seventy years. But, once on board and miles under the ocean, the team become trapped, and as the boat begins to reveal its darkest secrets, the prospect of returning to the surface alive begins to fade...
A wimpy remake of an already anaemic movie (the 1947 Rita Hayworth vehicle Down to Earth), this glitzy musical from 1980 improbably stars Olivia Newton-John as a heavenly muse sent here to help open a roller-derby disco. Gene Kelly is mixed up in this well-meaning but goofy effort to fuse nostalgia with late-70s glitter-ball trendiness, and he looks just plain silly. Directed by Robert Greenwald, the film doesn't even work as decent kitsch. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
One lies for fun. The other lies for money. Now that's teamwork. Pryor and Wilder reunite for another dose of their own inimitable brand of combined comedy hi-jinks! George (Wilder) has been in a mental hospital for 3 years and is now finally ready to return to the real world. Eddie Dash (Pryor) a dedicated con-man is supposed to keep him out of trouble but when people begin to mistake George for a missing millionaire Eddie wants to take advantage of the situation...
Oscar-winning actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft stars as an enigmatic elderly Austrian woman travelling across Europe by train. Over the course of one overnight journey she has a profound and unsettling influence on the young Englishman who is her fellow passenger... Originally broadcast in 1980 Caught on a Train was inspired by a journey Stephen Poliakoff made form London to Vienna as a young man of 25. The drama has endured as one of his most popular works. It is by turns both nightm
Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Al Capone. They were all seven once. Ben Healy (John Ritter) adopts Junior (Michael Oliver) a kid who's so bad that even the nuns want to kick him out of the orphanage in this hilarious heart-warming family comedy. When Ben and his infertile wife Flo (Amy Yasbeck) want a child right away Mr. Peabody (Gilbert Gottfried) cons them into taking little Junior but they have no idea what they're getting into! Before you can say ""bad seed "" Junior is setting his room on fire tormenting the cat and jeopardizing the mayoral campaign of Ben's father sporting goods king Big Ben (Jack Warden). But both Junior and his new father will learn what it really means to be a family in this comedy smash hit!
This morning they were playing ping-pong in the hospital rec room. Now they're lost in New York and framed for murder. This was never covered in group therapy. Michael Keaton heads an all-star cast in this irresistible comedy about four mental patients who are seperated from their therapist on the way to a baseball game. A chronic liar with a violent streak Billy (Michael Keaton) finds himself on the loose in New York City with his fellow group-therapy patients: Henry (Chri
From Director WALTER HILL comes a battle of gigantic proportions looming in the neon underground of New York City. The armies of the night number 100,000; they outnumber the police 5 to 1; and tonight they're after the Warriors a street gang blamed unfairly for a rival gang leader's death. Members of the Warriors fight for their lives, seek to survive in the urban jungle and learn the meaning of loyalty. Special Features Introduction by Director Walter Hill The Warriors 4 Featurettes: The Beginning - Battleground -The Way Home - The Phenomenon Original Theatrical Trailer HD
Soon after qualifying as doctors from St. Swithins young Burke and Hare set up in practice and get involved in a number of amorous exploits...
Set on a Pacific island in 1942, Too Late the Hero is a hard-as-nails "men on a mission" war movie: a group of British soldiers have to traverse the New Hebrides to destroy a Japanese radio transmitter, then get back to safety while being hunted all the way. Inevitably everything goes wrong, but director Robert (The Dirty Dozen) Aldrich turns the book of WWII movie clichés on its head and springs some unnerving surprises. Even the token American star, Cliff Robertson--echoing William Holden's grafted-on role in The Bridge on the River Kwai--proves less than obviously heroic, while an outstanding Michael Caine brings considerable depth to his usual cynical cockney. Henry Fonda gets heavily billed for a brief guest appearance, but there are star performances such fine British character actors as Denholm Elliot, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser and Lance Percival. This portrait of battle-worn men offers greater complexity than Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, while the jungle trek was more recently paralleled in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line. Only the attitudes--more 1970 than 1942--detract from Aldrich's tellingly realistic vision, which with a thoughtfully ironic script and a succession of tense set pieces and brutal firefights, builds to a harrowing climax. On the DVD: The picture is presented at approximately 1.7:1, reformatted from the original 2.2:1 70mm theatrical presentation. Despite approximately 25 per cent of the original image being missing, this loss is only really noticeable in a few scenes. Apart from the occasional fleck, the print is in superb condition, and despite the lack of anamorphic enhancement the picture is sharp, detailed and has excellent colour. The surround sound (not mono as listed on the packaging) is highly effective, with the tension being increased by a considerable amount of the music coming from the rear speakers. The special features are simply a few static pages of biographical and production notes. --Gary S. Dalkin
The Italian Job 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition This is the Self-Preservation Society!' Celebrate 50 years of iconic cult classic The Italian Job with the 50th Anniversary Limited Edition box set. Presented in a deluxe black and gold rigid gift box, this product includes: The Italian Job on both DVD and Blu-ray Exclusive landscape collector's booklet with a new bespoke 50th Anniversary text written by Matthew Field, the leading authority on The Italian Job, and behind-the-scenes photos Individually-numbered collector's certificate Complete script Customisable replica 1960s driving licence 50th Anniversary A3 poster 6 artcards with vintage and international film poster art The quintessential British caper film of the 1960s, The Italian Job is a flashy, fast romp that chases a team of career criminals throughout one of the biggest international gold heists in history. Michael Caine is Charlie Croker, a stylish robber and skirt-chaser just out of British prison.
Shy quiet Teddy Pierce (Gene Wilder) wanted a little adventure. And one day it walked into his life in a red silk dress. Now his wife is packing a gun. His friends are going nuts trying to cover for him and he's about to get caught with his pants down on the six o'clock news. Be very careful of what you want because you just might get it!
Not to be confused with the 2002 Matt Damon big-screen version, this adaptation of The Bourne Identity is a 1988 two-part TV miniseries based on the Robert Ludlum paperback bestseller. "How can I find out who I am if I've been turned into another person?", cries amnesiac Richard Chamberlain, fished out of the sea by drunken doc Denholm Elliott, who patches him up and discovers a Swiss bank account number sewn into his thigh. Coming to believe that he is Jason Bourne, international assassin, our hero is sought after by the CIA, several European police forces and the gang of an evil terrorist. He hooks up with unlikely economist Jaclyn Smith to get to the bottom of the mystery, stay alive and face the big baddie. Stretched over three hours, this has room for a lot of the complex plot dropped from the big-screen movie, but it also means that the thrills are often interrupted by soap opera scenes. Chamberlain is perhaps too aptly cast as a man without an identity, but Smith matches him for lack of expression without any excuse given in the script. Aside from Donald Moffatt and Shane Rimmer in the CIA, the supporting cast mostly consists of distinguished Brits delivering value-for-money ham, mostly with cod-French accents, especially Anthony Quayle as a DeGaulle-style General, Jacqueline Pearce as a dress-designing spy and Peter Vaughan as a heavy Swiss banker. On the DVD: The Bourne Identity, though made for TV, is presented in widescreen, which sometimes chops off the tops of actors' heads like breakfast eggs but mostly looks fine. There are optional English subtitles. --Kim Newman
When the Americans test a nuclear weapon at the South Pole at the exact moment that the Soviets are testing their own weapon at the North the earth's axis is jolted out of alignment causing catastrophic changes in global weather patterns. Additionally the earth has been dislodged from its orbit and is now hurtling towards the sun. It's a race against time as the world prepares for additional nuclear detonations which could restore life as we know it.
This box set contains both versions of The Italian Job--the original 60s classic starring Michael Caine and the 2003 remake, featuring Mark Wahlberg.
The BBC's Robin Hood is a big budget re-imagining of the classic tale with a unique blend of exhilarating action wit and romance all headed by a bright young cast of actors. Robin Hood delights as he fights the authority of the evil Sheriff of Nottingham with outrageous scams disguises tricks and ingenuity breathtaking archery and incredible swordplay. All the while he romances the heavenly Maid Marian and champions the poor with his band of merry men! Starring Keith
Problem Child: Ben Healy (John Ritter) and his social climbing wife Flo adopt Junior a fun-loving seven year old. But they soon discover he's a little monster as he turns a camping trip a birthday party and even a baseball game into comic nightmares. But is he really just a little angel trying to get out? Find out in this hilarious satire on modern-day family life. Problem Child 2: Junior the monster is now back as him and Ben his adoptive father move to Mortville 'the world's capital of divorce'. There Ben falls in love with a beautiful but mean-minded rich woman Lawanda Dumore who wants to marry him and eliminate Junior. As Junior and his new friend Trixie (she's another monster the daughter of Annie another woman) try to avoid this disaster and get their parents in love they get into a lot of trouble as we notice that ONE monster was already a headache TWO of them is really the apocalypse! Problem Child 3: That little devil Junior is back once more and he's just as naughty as ever! In this the third edition in the hilarious Problem Child series Junior is persuaded to join in with other children in various fun activities - including dancing. His father's plan appears to work when yes - Junior falls in love! - with the beautiful and ever popular Tiffany. But this only incites Junior to greater heights of mayhem-making as he sets about getting rid of the competition for Tiffany's affection.
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