Titles Comprise: Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone: Harry Potter learns on his 11th birthday that he is the orphaned son of a powerful witch and wizard and possesses magical powers of his own. At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Harry embarks on the adventure of a lifetime discovering a world of magic and fantasy where he is destined to live. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets: Cars fly trees fight back and a mysterious elf comes to warn Harry Potter at the start of the second year of his amazing journey into the world of wizardry. This year at Hogwarts spiders talk letters scold and Harry's own unsettling ability to speak to snakes turns his friends against him. From dueling clubs to rogue Bludgers it's a year of adventure and danger when bloody writing on a wall announces: The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. To save Hogwarts will require all of Harry Ron and Hermione's magical abilities and courage in this spellbinding adaptation of J.K. Rowling's second book. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban: It's Harry's third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. More terrifying than his increasingly difficult classes is the fact that convicted murderer Sirius Black (Oldman) an associate of Lord Voldemort has escaped Azkaban prison and could be coming after him... Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire: Beset by nightmares that leave his scar hurting more than usual Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is all too happy to escape his disturbing dreams by attending the Quidditch World Cup with his friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson). But something sinister ignites the skies at the Quidditch campsite; the Dark Mark the sign of the evil Lord Voldemort. It's conjured by his followers the Death Eaters who haven't dared to appear in public since Voldemort was last seen thirteen years ago - the night he murdered Harry's parents. Harry longs to get back inside the safe walls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) can protect him. But things are going to be a little different this year. Dumbledore announces that Hogwarts will host the Triwizard Tournament one of the most exciting and dangerous of the wizarding community's magical competitions. One champion will be selected from each of the three largest and most prestigious wizarding schools to compete in a series of life-threatening tasks in pursuit of winning the coveted Triwizard Cup... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Harry returns for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts and discovers that much of the wizarding community has been denied the truth about his recent encounter with the evil Lord Voldemort. Fearing that Hogwarts' venerable Headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lying about Voldemort's return in order to undermine his power and take his job the Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge appoints a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to keep watch over Dumbledore and the Hogwarts students. But Professor Dolores Umbridge's Ministry-approved course of defensive magic leaves the young wizards woefully unprepared to defend themselves against the dark forces threatening them and the entire wizarding community so at the prompting of his friends Hermione and Ron Harry takes matters into his own hands. Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince: Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle but Dumbledore is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows is fast approaching.
Still the most expensive movie ever made, Cleopatra nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. It also scandalised the world with the very public affair of its two major stars, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. But Joseph L Mankiewicz's 1963 epic deserves to be remembered for more than its off-screen troubles. An extravagantly elaborate production, the sets and costumes alone are awe-inspiring; Mankiewicz's own literate screenplay draws heavily on the classics and Shakespeare; while the supporting cast, led by Rex Harrison as Caesar and Roddy McDowall as his nephew (and future emperor) Octavian, are all first-rate thespians and generally put in more convincing performances than either of the two leads. Mankiewicz's original intention was to make two three-hour films: the first being Caesar and Cleopatra, the second Antony and Cleopatra. But before the films completion, and following a boardroom coup worthy of Ancient Rome itself, legendary mogul Darryl F Zanuck took back control of Fox and insisted that Cleopatra be cut to a more economical length. A heartbroken Mankiewicz was forced to trim his six-hour vision down to four. This was the "roadshow" version shown at the films premiere and now restored here for the first time. Then following adverse criticism and pressure from cinema chains Zanuck demanded more cuts, and the final released version ran a mere three hours--half the original length. Capitalising on the feverish publicity surrounding Burton and Taylor, the shortened version played up both their on- and off-screen romance. This longer four-hour roadshow version allows for a broader view of the film, adding some depth to the politics and manipulation of the characters. But the directors original six-hour edit has been lost. Perhaps one day it will be rediscovered in the vaults and Mankiewiczs much-maligned movie will finally be seen the way it was meant to be. Until then, Cleopatra remains an epic curiosity rather than the complete spectacle it should be. On the DVD: this handsome three-disc set spreads the restored four-hour print of the movie across two discs. The anamorphic widescreen print looks quite magnificent and Alex Norths wondrous score comes up like new in Dolby 5.1 sound. Theres a patchy and only intermittently revealing commentary from Chris Mankiewicz, Tom Mankiewicz, Martin Landau and Jack Brodsky. Much better is the comprehensive two-hour documentary that occupies disc three, which tells in hair-raising detail the extraordinary story of a film production that became totally out of control. This is accompanied by some short archival material, but the documentary alone is a compelling reason to acquire this set. --Mark Walker
Classic westerns collection of 3 Blu-ray discs starring Clint Eastwood in 1080p High Definition.
When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek revenge.
Let's see--he has been Han Solo in three films and Indiana Jones in three more. So why shouldn't Harrison Ford take on a new continuing character in Tom Clancy's CIA analyst Jack Ryan? In this film, directed by Phillip Noyce, Ford picked up the baton when Alec Baldwin, who played Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, opted for a Broadway role instead. In this film, Ryan and his family are on vacation when Ryan saves a member of the British royal family from attack by Irish terrorists. The next thing he knows, the Ryan clan has been targeted by the same terrorists, who invade his Maryland home. The film can't shed all of Clancy's lumbering prose, or his techno-dweeb fascination with spy satellites and the like. But no one is better than Ford at righteous heroism--and Sean Bean makes a suitably snakey villain. --Marshall Fine
American Indians were "cool" in 1970, the year A Man Called Horse made its vigorous, feverishly real, and occasionally shocking debut alongside Little Big Man and Soldier Blue. Unlike the latter two films, however, Horse is less an allegory for Vietnam-era America and more of a vision quest for historical identity. In one of his defining roles, Richard Harris plays an English aristocrat captured by Dakota Sioux in 1825. Over time, he adopts their way of life and eventually becomes tribal leader--but not before undergoing savage initiation rituals, the most famous of which involves being suspended by blades inserted beneath Harris's pectoral muscles. Horse looks clunky, quaint, and inadvertently demeaning in some respects today, but the film's Native-American milieu is at least defined on its own terms, making no concessions to familiar Western conventions. The real draw is Harris, whose performance has a soulful integrity. --Tom Keogh
The three nostalgic British musicals in the Cliff Richard DVD Collection are a good reminder that, thanks to a few short years in the 1960s, Sir Cliff can legitimately include "film star" on his already exceptional show business CV. The Young Ones (1961), Summer Holiday (1963) and Wonderful Life (1964) would make tame fare for a teen audience today, but they retain a polished and honest charm which might surprise the sharpest of cynics. First and foremost, of course, they were Cliff Richard vehicles: designed to showcase his all-round talents and capitalise on his first, heady wave of pop chart success. They are also unashamed homages to the heyday of the MGM B-musical with familiar themes: let's put on a show/save the youth club/make a film. But with up-and-coming directors Sidney Furie and Peter Yates making imaginative and sophisticated use of wide-angle camera work and fresh, snappy choreography by Herbert Ross and Gillian Lynne, they also have plenty of assets other than Cliff's wholesome appeal. There are some fine set pieces and surreal flashes, notably the history of cinema in Wonderful Life and the extraordinary mime sequence in Summer Holiday. They also tap into the very British energy of a group of young actors and dancers including Una Stubbs, Susan Hampshire, Melvyn Hayes and Richard O'Sullivan, as well as Cliff's band at the time, The Shadows. For sheer verve, they deserve to be seen on their own merits. On the DVD: The Cliff Richard DVD Collection has been pristinely restored; the colours and clarity, not to mention the use of Cinemascope, leap off the screen (aspect ratio 2.35:1). The mono soundtrack recreates the authentic bandbox sound of the 1960s. Aside from theatrical trailers, the most notable extras are directors' commentaries: actually Furie and Yates in occasionally long-winded conversation with film and music writers. Both men give fascinating insight into the film-making climate in Britain in the early 1960s.--Piers Ford
Wild Geese
Set in Wyoming in 1881 during the sunset years of the Wild West, 1992's Unforgiven was directed by and starred Clint Eastwood, and is generally considered to be the towering achievement of his twilight years. Eastwood plays William Munny, once a vicious, whisky-swilling bounty hunter, brought to heel by his marriage to a good woman. When she dies, he must raise two children and run a hog farm alone, something which we see him make a comically poor fist of doing. Then, in a twist of fate, a young outlaw called the Schofield Kid trots up to his farm and invites him to collect on a $1,000 reward raised by a group of prostitutes. However, Clint must not only face up to his own somewhat rusty skills as a gunslinger, but also to genial-but-psychopathic lawman Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman in superb form). Unforgiven ultimately conforms to the expectations of the genre, while subverting quite a few of them on the way. There's brooding on the consequences of violence ("It's a hell of a thing to kill a man"), as Munny's ineptitude with a rifle is matched by his feelings of penitence for his younger wrongdoings. Finally, however, Eastwood casts aside age and inhibition in a chillingly ruthless shootout, his powers miraculously (improbably?) restored, in what could also be seen as an assertion on the part of the ageing Eastwood of his own potency as a major player in Hollywood. --David Stubbs
From Academy Award® nominated director Michael Anderson (Around The World In Eighty Days) and starring screen legends Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling, ORCA, THE KILLER WHALE is a terrifying tale of man versus beast. Initially on the hunt for a great white shark, the obsessive Captain Nolan (Harris) accidentally kills a pregnant orca. Seeking vengeance, her mate begins to terrorise the nearby fishing village in a rampage of death and destruction. Realising that only he can bring an end to the carnage, Nolan sets out on a deadly quest to face his enemy from the deep
THE SCREEN STRETCHES TO NEW HORIZONS TO TELL THE EPIC STORY OF THE SOUTHWEST! After making his first bonafide classic in Ride the High Country, director Sam Peckinpah took a step towards the epic with Major Dundee. The film would, in many ways, define the rest of his career both on screen and off, as the drama behind the camera matched the action in front of it. Charlton Heston stars as Major Amos Dundee, a vainglorious Union Cavalry officer, who mounts an expedition to hunt down Apache war chief Sierra Charriba. Building his own army of criminals, ex-slaves and Confederate POWs - among them one Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris), whose intense former friendship with Dundee is tainted with a sense of betrayal on both sides - Dundee heads into Mexico, his eye fixed firmly on a last shot at greatness. Legendarily acerbic, Major Dundee would be the first time that Peckinpah had a movie taken away from him. While a director's cut may be lost to us, this Limited Edition shows us the thrilling, morally complex epic that Peckinpah was aiming for. Beautifully shot and with a stellar supporting cast including James Coburn, Warren Oates, and L.Q. Jones, it remains a stunning achievement and an essential experience for anyone interested in the life and cinema of Bloody Sam. Special Features The 136-minute Extended Version of the film from a 4K scan, as well as the original 122-minute Theatrical Version 60-page perfect bound booklet featuring new writing by Farran Nehme, Roderick Heath and Jeremy Carr plus select archive material Limited edition packaging featuring newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella Fold out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella DISC ONE - EXTENDED VERSION High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation from a 4K scan by Sony Pictures DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio with new score by Christopher Caliendo Lossless original mono audio with original score by Daniele Amfitheatrof Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Audio commentary with Nick Redman, David Weddle, Garner Simmons, Paul Seydor Audio commentary by historian and critics Glenn Erickson & Alan K. Strode Audio commentary by historian and critic Glenn Erickson Moby Dick on Horseback, a brand new visual essay by David Cairns Passion & Poetry: The Dundee Odyssey, a feature length documentary about the making of Major Dundee by Mike Siegel, featuring James Coburn, Senta Berger, Mario Adorf, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Gordon Dawson Passion & Poetry: Peckinpah Anecdotes, nine actors talk about working with legendary director Sam Peckinpah, featuring Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine, James Coburn, David Warner, Ali MacGraw, L.Q. Jones, Bo Hopkins, R.G. Armstrong, Isela Vega Mike Siegel: About the Passion & Poetry Project, in which filmmaker Mike Siegel talks about his beginnings and his ongoing historical project about director Sam Peckinpah Extensive stills galleries, featuring rare on set, behind the scenes, and marketing materials 2005 re-release trailer DISC TWO - THEATRICAL VERSION (LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE) High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation from a 2K scan Lossless original mono audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Riding for a Fall, a vintage behind the scenes featurette Extended/deleted scenes Silent Outtakes Select extended/deleted scenes and outtakes with commentary by historian and critic Glenn Erickson giving context on how they were intended to appear in Peckinpah's vision of the film Original US, UK and German theatrical trailers Stills gallery
Doctor Jonathan Dempsey is sent to Scotland to destroy the myth surrounding the Loch Ness monster. The daughter of his new girlfriend said to possess special mystic powers changes his life forever....
The unforgettable adventure of Man from the Creation! The greatest stories of the Old Testament are brought to the screen with astounding scope and power in this international film which depicts the first 22 chapters of Genesis. This is the spectacular story of man's creation his fall his survival and his indomitable faith in the future. Matching the epic scale of the production are performances by George C. Scott as Abraham Ava Gardner as Sarah and Peter O'Toole as the ha
'Yanks' is the moving story of American servicemen stationed in England during the Second World War and the impact that their presence had on the lives of people in a small Lancashire village. This beautifully filmed drama follows three American soldiers and the relationships that they form with three local women: Jean Helen and Mollie. The relationships that blossom would affect their lives forever. This romantic and memorable movie highlights the cultural differences that ex
The latest instalment in the Harry Potter series finds young wizard Harry and his friends Ron and Hermoine facing new challenges during their second year at Hogwarts as they try to uncover a dark force that is terrorising the school.
Jet Li stars in this science fiction tale about a killer travelling through parallel universes, killing other versions of himself to gain power.
Like the very best of SF TV, Stargate SG-1 began very simply. Of course it had the benefit of a movie preceding it--in which the alternate universe, its rules and its characters were largely established--so this premiere season was therefore able to concentrate on good storytelling. In 1997 not every new show was obsessed with securing a syndication-guaranteed franchise (same goes for Buffy debuting the same year), instead one-off episodes were the way of things, exploring interesting scenarios and conundrums. Naturally there were allusions to the feature film, but most were subtle and inspired. For example, a trip to retrieve the trapped professor who'd worked on the Gate decades ago was an unusual way of tying up loose ends. Some groundwork was laid for continuation should the show be renewed into an ongoing series. Knowing that these elements were pure wishful thinking at the time makes the tapestry of System Lords and the interlinks with our history and mythology all the more enjoyable in revisiting the show from its beginnings. With Richard Dean Anderson, leading the team in a far more charismatic and empathetic way than Kurt Russell in the movie, the series also benefited from some spot-on casting that instantly won audiences over. Special effects and use of studio sets may be less dazzling in these initial shows, but its solid grounding in old-fashioned SF won for the show a loyal audience. --Paul Tonks
More than 30 years after the Oscar-winning film Born Free moved millions To Walk With Lions is set to make a similar impact. Starring Richard Harris as Kenyan game warden George Adamson To Walk With Lions is the dramatic compelling true story of Adamsons continued battle to save the Kenyan wildlife. He takes on Tony Fitzjohn a down and out drifter from London to help at his reserve in Kora. When poachers begin to trespass into Kora hunting for rhino horn and ivory
Some of us will never understand why this boy-and-his-whale tale became the hit family film of 1993 and one of the bestselling videos of all time. But it is easy to see how clever marketing and a tear-jerking story could touch the hearts of kids and parents the world over, especially because the endangered Orca whale named Willy is such a majestic creature. The story of Free Willy couldn't be more conventional--it's like Old Yeller and The Black Stallion with a big sea mammal--but as the boy who comes to Willy's aid against the whale's exploitative owner, young Jason James Richter gives an appealing performance with which children can readily identify. After two sequels and an animated television series, this popular film also had a happy real-life ending: Keiko the whale (who plays Willy) recovered from failing health and was gradually trained to survive outside of captivity. --Jeff Shannon
From Academy Award nominated director Michael Anderson (Around The World In Eighty Days) and screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni (The Good The Bad and the Ugly) comes a gripping and terrifying tale of man versus beast. Starring screen legends Richard Harris (Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stones The Field) and Charlotte Rampling (Melancholia Swimming Pool) ORCA - The Killer Whale is a thrilling and ferocious action adventure of mythical proportions. Initially on the hunt for a great white shark the obsessive Captain Nolan (Harris) harpoons and kills a pregnant whale and her unborn foetus. Unbeknown to Nolan the atrocity was witnessed by her mate a gigantic Orca killer whale. Intent on revenge the Orca begins to terrorise the nearby fishing village on a rampage of death and destruction. Only Nolan can bring an end to the devastation. He must face his enemy from the deep in a deadly quest that will take him and his crew to the edge of earth and towards a destiny drenched in spilled blood.
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