David Mamet's 1987 directorial debut House of Games is mesmerising study of control and seduction between two kinds of detached observers: a gambler who is also a con artist and a psychotherapist who is also an emerging pop-psych guru in the book market. The latter (played by Lindsay Crouse) meets the former (Joe Mantegna) when one of her clients is driven to despair from his debts to the card shark. Mantegna's character agrees to drop the IOUs in exchange for Crouse's attention at the seedy House of Games in Seattle, a mecca for conmen to talk shop and hustle unsuspecting customers. The shrink gets so caught up in the arcane rules and world view of her guide over subsequent days that she observes--with no false rapture--various stings in progress inside and outside the club. Mamet's story finally becomes a fascinating study of two people protecting and extending their respective cosmologies the way rival predators fight for the same piece of turf. The psychological challenge is compelling; so is the stylised dialogue, with its pattern of pauses and hiccups and humming meter. Mostly shooting at night, Mamet also gave Seattle a different look from previous filmmakers, turning its familiar puddles into concentrations of liquid neon and poisonous noir. --Tom Keogh
In the vastly overrated 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind puts the blame for Hollywood's blockbuster mentality at least partially on Steven Spielberg's box-office success with this adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestselling novel. But you can't blame Spielberg for making a terrific film, which Jaws definitely is. The story of a Long Island town whose summer tourist business is suddenly threatened by great white shark attacks on humans bypasses the potboiler trappings of Benchley's book and goes straight for the jugular with beautifully crafted, crowd-pleasing sequences of action and suspense. This is supported by a trio of terrific performances by Roy Scheider (as the local sheriff), Richard Dreyfuss (as a shark specialist), and particularly Robert Shaw (as the old fisherman who offers to hunt the shark down). The sequences on Shaw's boat--as the three of them realise that in fact the shark is hunting them--are what entertaining moviemaking is all about. --Marshall Fine --This text refers to another version of this video.
This awesome Chubby triple features the foul mouthed comedian in three of his most revered performances. Titles include 'Thunder Bollocks' 'Stocking Filler' and 'Kick Ass Chubbs'.
The words of the opening song pretty much describe the menu in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum--"Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: a comedy tonight!"--a frantic adaptation of the stage musical by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove. The wild story, based on the Latin comedies of Plautus and set in ancient Rome, follows a slave named Pseudolus (Zero Mostel, snorting and gibbering) as he tries to extricate himself from an increasingly farcical situation; Mostel and a bevy of inspired clowns, including Phil Silvers, Jack Gilford and Buster Keaton, keep the slapstick and the patter perking. The cast also includes the young Michael Crawford as a love-struck innocent. This project landed in the lap of Richard Lester, then one of the hottest directors in the world after his success with the Beatles' films. Lester telescoped the material through his own joke-a-second sensibility, and also ripped out some of the songs from Stephen Sondheim's Broadway score. The result is very close to the vaudeville spirit suggested by the title--though anyone with a low tolerance for Zero Mostel's overbearing buffoonery may be in trouble. Oddly enough, amid all the frenzy, Lester creates a grungy, earthy Rome that seems closer to the real thing than countless respectable historical films on the subject. Frankie Howerd, who played Pseudolus on the London stage, kept the tradition going with his Up Pompeii TV series. --Robert Horton
You are now entering Interzone, William S Burroughs' phantasmagorical land of junk, paranoia and crawly things. Best travel advice: "Exterminate all rational thought". In David Cronenberg's superbly shot, unnerving warp on the Burroughs novel, Naked Lunch, the novelist himself becomes a main character (played in an implacable monotone by Peter Weller), with elements from Burroughs' life--including the shooting of his wife during a "William Tell" game, and bohemian friends Kerouac and Ginsberg--added to frame the book's wild visions. This is, ironically, a somewhat rational approach to an unfilmable book (and it makes a hair-curling double bill with Barton Fink, another look at writerly madness, with both films sharing Judy Davis). Cronenberg is a natural for oozing mugwumps and typewriters that turn into giant bugs, of course. But in the end, this is really his own vision of the artistic process, rather than Burroughs' hallucinatory descent into hell. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
Enter season 5 of Angel featuring all 22 episodes of the final series. Episodes comprise: 1. Conviction 2. Just Rewards 3. Unleashed 4. Hell Bound 5. Life of the Party 6. The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco 7. Lineage 8. Destiny 9. Harm's Way 10. Soul Purpose 11. Damage 12. You're Welcome 13. Why We Fight 14. Smile Time 15. A Hole in the World 16. Shells 17. Underneath 18. Origin 19. Time Bomb 20. The Girl in Question 21. Power Play 22. Not Fade Away
Few early rockers were more gifted or less honoured in their prime than the late Roy Orbison, whose vaulting tenor and vulnerable love songs conjured heartbreak and desire with operatic intensity. This 1987 concert special came two decades after Orbison had retreated from pop's front lines, yet neither Orbison nor his music coasts on mere nostalgia: in every respect, A Black and White Night survives as a triumphant performance and a superb video production, as well as a first-rate retrospective of Orbison's hits.Filmed in black and white against the streamlined art deco stage of the since-demolished Coconut Grove in downtown Los Angeles, the concert is buoyed by a remarkable cast of A-list Orbison fans who signed on as his accompanists. Under the direction of producer T-Bone Burnett, the stage band thus includes Jackson Browne, Burnett, Elvis Costello, k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, J.D. Souther, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Jennifer Warnes, along with the rhythm section from Elvis Presley's fabled late 60s and early 70s touring band. That astonishing line-up is all the more noteworthy for the restraint with which they collaborate--it's evident that those superstars came to honour Orbison, not upstage him, resulting in a gratifying cohesion to the performances.Orbison himself sounds as powerful as ever, his soaring falsetto cresting as dramatically as it did on the studio versions of the hits that inevitably dominate. Those songs meanwhile confirm that his blue-chip admiration society came as much for the calibre of his writing as for his ravishing voice: if he remains best known for the jaunty come-on of "Pretty Woman", Orbison was first and foremost a rock balladeer, capable of bringing lumps to our throats with such classics as "Crying" and "Only the Lonely", or conjuring romantic trances through such gentle charmers as "Dream Baby". On this night, he handled all of them with fervour and finesse. --Sam Sutherland, Amazon.com
Alongside Come Play with Me and Confessions of a Window Cleaner Eskimo Nell takes its place as one of the most celebrated British sex comedies of the 1970s. Featuring a witty script from Michael Armstrong (who also stars) and directed by a young Martin Campbell years before he helmed the James Bond movies GoldenEye and Casino Royale Eskimo Nell is a hilarious satire on the low-budget British movie industry. Three inexperienced filmmakers (Armstrong Christopher Timothy and Terence Edmond) attempt to make a movie version of the notoriously rude poem The Ballad of Eskimo Nell with disastrous results. This classic British comedy features a cast of famous faces including Roy Kinnear (The Three Musketeers) Katy Manning (Doctor Who) Christopher Biggins (Porridge) Diane Langton (Carry On England) Anna Quayle (Grange Hill) and an eye-popping cameo from 1970s sex-bomb Mary Millington in her début movie.
In New York City the brother of infamous Nazi war criminal Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier) is killed in a car accident. Shortly thereafter members of a covert US government group called 'The Division' who are investigating the incident begin to be murdered one by one. When Doc Levy (Roy Scheider) a 'Division' agent is the latest to be attacked his brother Babe (Dustin Hoffman) witnesses his death and unwittingly becomes the pawn in a deadly game in which former SS denti
The eccentric Hollywood Billionaire Howard Hughes produced and directed Hell's Angels the most expensive film made at the time. Hughes spared no expense in capturing an exciting dogfight between R.A.F. and German fighter planes using 137 pilots in all. Hell's Angels is perhaps more notable for introducing Jean Harlow to the screen in her first major film role. Set during World War I Hell's Angels is the story of three Oxford buddies: two brothers (Ben Lyon and Jam
Princess And The Goblin The
Cinema's enfant terrible Ken Russell's debut feature is an exuberant farce that has become a cult classic since its theatrical release fifty years ago. Featuring early lead roles for James Booth and Roy Kinnear and with script input from Johnny Speight this much sought-after comedy gem is made available here for the first time in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements. Gormleigh-on-Sea is the sort of typical boring English seaside resort where the landladies lock away the jam at 5 o'clock and there's little do except carve your initials on the bus shelters. Then deck-chair attendant Jim has a brain-wave – persuading the Mayor to host a film festival and import a French movie siren. It's not long before the mayors of Gormleigh's rival towns look on with jealous eyes and scheming minds… Special Features: Original theatrical trailer Image gallery Promotional material PDFs
101 Films presents Screamers (1995), an action-packed sci-fi thriller starring Peter Weller (Robocop), based on Philip K. Dick's short story Second Variety, and title 013 on the 101 Films Black Label. The year is 2078. The man is rebel Alliance Commander Col. Joseph Hendricksson (Weller), assigned to protect the Sirius 6B outpost from ravage and plunder at the hands of the New Economic Bloc. His state-of-the-art weaponry are known as Screamers: manmade killing devices programmed to eliminate all enemy life forms. Screamers travel underground, their intent to kill announced by piercing shrieks. They dissect their victims with sushi precision, then eradicate all traces of the carnage. They are lethal. Effective. Tidy. And somehow, they are mutating self-replicating into human form and slaughtering every beating heart on the planet. Brand New Extras Commentary with film critic Kevin Lyons Additional Extras Northern Frights An interview with director Christian Duguay Orchestrating the Future An interview with producer Tom Berry More Screamer Than Human An interview with co-writer Miguel Tejada-Flores From Runaway to Space An interview with actress Jennifer Rubin Theatrical Trailer
This compelling emotional drama stars Carol White as a young single mother who finds herself caught between two people a local priest and a folk singer each of whom wants to convert her to his own worldview. An elegy to a younger generation looking for something to believe in, Made co-stars hugely influential folk-rock musician Roy Harper in his screen debut. Produced by Joseph Janni who previously made the astonishingly successful Poor Cow with White directed by The Long Good Friday's John Mackenzie and featuring new songs specially composed by Harper, this much sought-after film is featured here in a brand-new High Definition restoration from the original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. SPECIAL FEATURES: Original Theatrical Trailer Booklet by Professor Neil Sinyard Image Gallery Original Pressbook PDF
A Top 10 collection of the finest football action chosen by the readers of The Sun. The programme includes the Top 10: Acrobatic Goals Goalkeepers Misses Long Range Goals Defenders Bloopers Free-Kicks Midfielders Spectacular Saves Team Goals Comedy Moments Volleys Forwards Rising Stars Celebrations
Chubby's back with an all new outrageous show! Hear the most hilarious gags from the UK's favourite and raciest standup!
Biographical documentary from film-maker Frederic Tcheng centred on the life and career of fashion designer Halston. The film examines the rags-to-riches history of Halston's fashion label and the reams of celebrities who flocked to spend time with him.
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