Cy Endfield cowrote the epic prequel Zulu Dawn 15 years after his enormously popular Zulu. Set in 1879, this film depicts the catastrophic Battle of Isandhlwana, which remains the worst defeat of the British army by natives--the British contingent was outnumbered 16-to-1 by the Zulu tribesmen. The film's opinion of events is made immediately clear in its title sequence: ebullient African village life presided over by King Cetshwayo is contrasted with aristocratic artifice under the arrogant eye of General Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole). Chelmsford is at the heart of all that goes wrong, initiating the catastrophic battle with an ultimatum made seemingly for the sake of giving his troops something to do. His detached manner leads to one mistake after another and this is wryly illustrated in a moment when neither he nor his officers can be bothered to pronounce the name of the land they're in. That it's a beautiful land none the less is made clear by the superb cinematography, which drinks in the massive open spaces that shrink the British army to a line of red ants. Splendidly stiff-upper-lipped support comes from a heroic Burt Lancaster and a fluffy, yet gruff, Bob Hoskins. Although the story is less focused and inevitably more diffuse than the concentrated events of Rorke's Drift that followed soon after, Zulu Dawn is an unflinchingly honest depiction of British Imperial diplomacy. --Paul Tonks
Starring Robert Beatty Jack Warner and Simone Signoret this is the story of a diverse group of people from very different backgrounds who were brought together in one of the strangest enterprises of the war. Sabotage was their job; sabotage organised from London in the form of macabre practical jokes as ingenious as they were injurious to the enemy. The work was over-clouded with the constant fear of discovery - and what it would mean.
Adapted from the novel by Anthony Powell this miniseries tells the story of the upper classes in England from the early 1920s to modern times. Friendship murder adultery ambition and failure are set against a backdrop of social political and artistic life during the pivotal years of this century - from the decadence of the early Twenties to the sobering Thirties from the devastation of the Second World War to the world created in its aftermath. Centre stage is Kenneth Widmerpool and his rise to power through business the military and politics. The comings and goings of Widmerpool and his circle is charted by the omnipresent Nicholas Jenkins.
These eight episodes from the Fast Show's third series brought us sparking new characters like the 13th Duke of Wybourne No Offence Taff Lad and the Hearty Hikers and treats in the shape of Swiss Toni Dave Angel Eco-Warrior and the Posh Cockneys to join old favourites like Suits You Chanel 9 Colin Hunt Ted and Ralph and the ever-increasing parade of catchphrase heroes.
Titles Comprise: The Dam Busters: Dr Barnes Wallis was possessed with a seemingly crazy idea - the creation of a bouncing bomb designed to destroy the Ruhr dams and paralyse the enemy's industrial nerve centre. He fought persistent scepticism and disbelief that such a feat was possible though even with the matchless skill of RAF Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his squadron could such a mission succeed? Against The Wind: Starring Robert Beatty Jack Warner and Simone Signoret this is the story of a diverse group of people from very different backgrounds who were brought together in one of the strangest enterprises of the war. Sabotage was their job; sabotage organised from London in the form of macabre practical jokes as ingenious as they were injurious to the enemy. The work was over-clouded with the constant fear of discovery - and what it would mean. The Colditz Story: One German maximum security prison was more famous than any other during World War II - Colditz castle. Although Colditz was considered 'escape proof' its boundaries were challenged many times by Allied prisoners of war with fatal results. On 15th October 1942 a group of British servicemen made the most historic and perhaps the most courageous attempt of all...
Director Henri-Georges Clouzot cast his own wife Vera as the hapless victim in this acclaimed masterpiece of the macabre. A wife plans the murder of her tyrant husband with the help of his mistress yet when his body dissappears panic and confusion ensues... The Great Suspense Film That Shocked the World... And Became A Classic.
"The Cove" begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption and bids to put a stop to the underhand and dangerous hunts that take place here.
A city family relocate to an old mansion in the sticks and soon discover what dark secrets are hidden inside.
Les Diaboliques is a classic suspense film that sets the standard rarely reached by contemporary movies. A blueprint for Psycho among others this film has many imitators but few peers.A tyrant schoolteacher - Delasalle (Paul Meurisse) in a seedy boarding school has both his wife (Vera Clouzot) and his mistress (Simone Signoret) looking for a way out as he maltreats them both. They decide to work together to murder their tormentor.The two women drown Delasalle in the bath then dump the body in a swimming pool. When the pool is drained and no body found they start to worry. When his suit is returned cleaned they start to panic.Is he alive? Does someone else know? A spiral of perfectly crafted tension hurtles you to an unparalleled conclusion and an ending you will never forget!Both frightening and intoxicating in equal measures this film stands the test of time and remains a classic.
First there was an opportunity......then there was a betrayal.Twenty years have gone by. Much has changed but just as much remains the same.Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to the only place he can ever call home. They are waiting for him: Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Other old friends are waiting too: sorrow, loss, joy, vengeance, hatred, friendship, love, longing, fear, regret, diamorphine, self-destruction and mortal danger, they are all lined up to welcome him, ready to join the dance.Click Images to Enlarge
Jackie Chan is Bei a less-than-successful exercise equipment salesman who yearns for excitement in his life. One day Bei follows his instincts and trails two suspicious men into action and foils their plans. The resulting publicity from Bei's heroism brings him to the attention of a private investigator who informs him that he is actually the long-lost son of a wealthy businessman!
Collection of three British crime dramas. In 'Dangerous Mind of a Hooligan' (2014) football hooligan Danny (Paul Marlon) and his three friends, Tony (Simon Phillips), Caeser (Samuel Anoyke) and Rowntree (Roger Griffiths), are forced on the run after a bank robbery goes wrong and leaves them with no clean getaway, a hostage and numerous bags of stolen money. While being pursued across the country by the police, the group's alliances are put to the test as they begin to question who they can trust. 'Undercover Hooligan' (2016) sees police officer Michael Clarke (Kris Johnson) suspended from duty for his excessive use of violence and given the dangerous task of infiltrating an infamous London gang with the end goal of bringing down its leader Terence Turner (Patrick Connolly). Taken in by his new lifestyle, Clarke's superiors can only watch as he is drawn deeper into the underground world of gangs and violence. Finally, in 'Hooligan Legacy' (2016), after a daring robbery of a football stadium goes wrong, the leader of a notorious football firm is sentenced to ten years in prison. When he's finally released, he eagerly seeks revenge against those responsible for putting him behind bars.
The creative collaboration of Paul Tanter and Simon Phillips (White Collar Hooligan) brings you this action packed Football hooligan turned bank robber tale. An exciting chase movie with twists and turns as the police close in on a team of hooligans who have turned their violence onto the scoundrel bankers!
One of the great late period films by Sacha Guitry - the total auteur who delighted (and scandalised) the French public and inspired the French New Wave as a model for authorship as director-writer-star of screen and stage alike. In every one of his pictures (and almost every one served as a rueful examination of the war between the sexes), Guitry sculpted by way of a rapier wit - one might say by way of the Guitry touch - some of the most sophisticated black comedies ever conceived... and La Poison [Poison] is one of his blackest. Michel Simon plays Paul Braconnier, a man with designs on murdering his wife Blandine (Germaine Reuver) - a woman with similar designs on her husband. When Braconnier visits Paris to consult with a lawyer about the perfect way of killing a spouse - that is, the way in which he can get away with it - an acid comedy unfolds that reaches its peak in a courtroom scene for the ages. From the moment of Guitry's trademark introduction of his principals in the opening credits, and on through the brilliant performance by national treasure Michel Simon (of Renoir's Boudu sauve des eaux and Vigo's L'Atalante, to mention only two high-water marks), here is fitting indication of why Guitry is considered by many the Gallic equal of Ernst Lubitsch. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to introduce Sacha Guitry into the catalogue with La Poison for the first time on video in the UK in a dazzling new Gaumont restoration. Special Features: New HD restoration of the film, presented in 1080p on the Blu-ray Newly translated optional subtitles Substantial booklet containing writing on the film, vintage excerpts, and rare archival imagery
Jet Li stars as Tai Feng a Hitman with a sense of justice and a talent for deliberately missing his intended victims. When his streetwise agent Sam (Eric Tsang) uses Tais awesome fighting skills to acquire billions of dollars at the expense of the heavy-hitting Japanese mobsters the scene is set for a martial-arts showdown of ground-breaking proportions.
Focused on the madcap lives of flatmates Vince (Sean Lock) and Errol (Benedict Wong), the first series of the critically acclaimed BBC comedy Fifteen Stories High craftily points out the eccentricities of the modern world. Vince is an oddball with the habits of a man who has spent too much time in his own company. A lifeguard at the local swimming pool, he takes great pride in being able to tell swimmers off for no reason, and obtains his home decorating ideas from photos in Readers' Wives. His lodger, Errol is the opposite of Vince, naively stupid and always taken advantage of by others. But he has his own unusual habits, too, such as tearing at wallpaper whenever he sees an unstuck corner. Vince has the weirdest encounters, though: such as being locked in the stocks for six hours when wrongly accused of killing a swan; or taken hostage by a neighbour when he spies a moon-boot wearing Shetland pony in the man's spare bedroom. Equally as funny are the short stories of the other residents living in the tower block that are interspersed between the antics of Vince and Errol. Enclosed within the four walls of different flats on the estate, these claustrophobic locations provide the ideal settings for the extreme behaviours depicted. There's the hygiene obsessive who forces a visiting double-glazing salesman to take a bath and wear a protective suit before being able to look round his flat; the old man who spends all night in front of a mirror in a pair of underpants pretending he's James Bond; and a New Age enthusiast who's always getting disturbed when recording relaxation tapes. The general weirdness of the series takes some getting used to, but once you decipher the crazy world of Vince and Errol this is five-star comedy with a dark tinge. --John Galilee
My Name Is JoeKen Loach's My Name Is Joe is a slice of life so raw that you can see the blood dripping off it and as in real life it mixes humour passion tragedy and violence in equal measure. Joe (Peter Mullan) is a recovering alcoholic and has done a few things in his past which he'd rather forget. Like most people he knows he's out of work but he keeps sane by coaching the self-styled worst football team in Glasgow. When one of Joe's players Liam gets involved with some local gangsters a chain of events is set in motion which not only threatens the lives of those concerned but also comes between Joe's budding love affair with social worker Sarah (Louise Goodall). Raining StonesBob Williams is a survivor. He supplements his dole by becoming embroiled in whatever scam is on offer from rustling sheep to rotting drains. But now life has dealt him a bitter blow. His van has been stolen and his daughter Colleen is approaching her first communion. She needs the traditional white dress shoes veil and gloves. Where on earth is the money going to come from? Raining Stones is a funny and essentially human story of survival in the nineties and people's aspirations for a better way of life. Riff RaffStevie a young Glaswegian just out of Barlinnie prison comes down to London and gets a job on a building site - a melting pot of itinerant laborers from all over the country. Here he has to contend with Mick the bossy ganger trying - but usually failing to control his workers Shem Mo and Larry and the other lads as they duck and dive the rules and regulations of the building trade. Stevie has other problems to contend: the wages are low the site teems with rats he has nowhere to sleep and life in London isn't that easy. One day on his way to work Stevie finds a handbag in a skip. He takes it back to it owner and meets Susan. As Stevie and Susan learn to live with the ups and downs of life in London Riff-Raff builds a portrait - sometimes gritty often funny of life as it is lived in the margins.
The success of The Fast Show has always relied on the number of sketches devoted to your favourite characters. While this, the last ever series, suffers a little for the loss of Caroline Aherne (presumably busy with The Royle Family?), and from the fact that those sketches based on a single catch-phrase or joke--Jessie's Diets, "Which was nice", and even the cough-prone Bob Fleming--seem to be running out of steam, the show's more rounded creations are all back and still going strong. Swiss Tony has emerged from therapy a new man, Colin Hunt gets the sack from his beloved office job and Ralph struggles on with his unrequited love for handyman Ted. There are new characters: a ragged, Charlton Heston-like astronaut who runs into different situations screaming, "What year is this? Who is the President?!", and a cynical, middle-aged woman who meets every note of human kindness she encounters with a sarcastic "Hah!", are particular standouts. However, as always, the series works best when the regular characters collide with contemporary phenomena, so here we have Indecisive Dave being phoned by a friend who's appearing on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?; the "Suits You!" tailors harassing an incognito Johnny Depp; the cheeky criminal stealing a child's Pokémon cards; John Actor playing hard-nosed interior designer Laurence Lewellyn Monkfish in Changing Monkfish; the send-up of recent gangster Brit flicks A Right Royal Barrel of Cockney Monkeys (populated entirely by pseudo-cockney public schoolboys); and a sketch in which Channel 9's gardening presenter is assisted by a topless woman. Nice Dimmocks! --Paul Philpott
This classic BBC adaptation of Thomas Hughes' novel is set amongst the class rooms playing fields and dormitories of Rugby school. Tom (Anthony Murphy) is initially overjoyed to find out that he has a place at the prestigious Rugby school. An altercation with Sir Richard Flashman whose son is the resident bully ensures that Tom is in for a rough ride...
On the surface, it is a seamless caper. A beautiful bank robbery staged by a veteran expert and two exuberant heirs apparent.
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