Set around a London bus depot, On the Buses starred Reg Varney as Stan, an ageing bachelor and driver of the No.11 bus who still lives with his Mum (Cicely Courtneidge), his plain sister Olive (Anna Karen) and disgruntled brother-in-law Arthur (Michael Robbins). At work, he fraternises with the laddish and lecherous Jack (Bob Grant), with whom he pursues innumerable (and improbable) giggly, mini-skirted "clippies" (conductors) and cheeks the beady-eyed and punctilious bus inspector, Blakey (Steven Lewis) This first series was broadcast in black and white in 1969. Much of the comedy derives from gender role reversal--Stan and Arthur forced to do the household chores when Olive and Mum fall ill ("Family Flu"); "The Canteen", in which the busmen decide to run the canteen themselves; or "The Darts Match", in which Stan and Jack are bested at darts by--imagine--a pair of dollybird clippies. Despite its immense popularity, On the Buses hasn't dated well. Like the buses themselves, the jokes don't arrive very often and when they do, they're visible a long way off. The studio audience whoops cathartically at anything remotely alluding to sex, making you wonder at the repressed nature of British society in 1969. In later decades it would come to be treasured as somewhat creaky kitsch by audiences nostalgic for an age of politically incorrect innocence. On the DVD: On the Buses has no extra features here. The original black and white versions have scrubbed up reasonably well, although defects such as fading sound and poor dubbing have proven beyond amendment. --David Stubbs
It has become traditional for The X-Files to kick off each new season with a humourless conspiracy two-parter, and Season 9 is no exception: in The X Files: Nothing Important Happened Today David Duchovnys Mulder is gone, along with everything in his apartment, and Gillian Andersons Scully is mostly at home with her perhaps-telekinetic baby, which leaves the bulk of the investigation to promising new characters Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Reyes (Annabeth Gish).The A-plot features Lucy Lawless as a water-breathing terminatrix who could be an alien, a government experiment or a mermaid without it making any difference, but too much time is spent on impossible-to-follow subplots about internal FBI politics and everyones intricate backstory (if ever a release needed a "previously..." prologue, this is it). Usually, the series gets over these heart-sinking openers and livens up a bit, but this time theres a feeling that this is the end of the line for a thoroughly battered premise.Chris Carter joins Gene Roddenberry in the exclusive category of producer-creators who turn in the worst scripts for their own shows, and all the strengths of The X-Files (shivers, wit, provocative ideas) are missing in action here as the engine grinds on empty.On the DVD: The X-Files: Nothing Important Happened Today on disc arrives with two three-minute filler featurettes, focusing on Gishs character and the making of this show. The good news is that this anamorphic widescreen release is the best The X-Files has ever looked in a television format, showing that however dramatically exhausted it might be, the show remains technically impressive. --Kim Newman
A gritty and hard-hitting coming-of-age story about one young man looking for answers in all the wrong places as he falls in with a violent gang
In the six-part British "vampire-slaying" mini-series Ultraviolet we discover that UV light is used (both in surgery and via high-tech weaponry) to identify people who have been infected with a disease labelled "Code 5". It's transmitted via a bite to the neck, but at no point in the series is the word "vampire" used. Instead, in the second episode ("In Nomine Patris") the nickname "Leech" is introduced. We learn that it was this disease, these "Leeches", that were responsible for the Fire of London, and that one in 20 people are already infected. In the opening episode, policeman Michael Colefield (Jack Davenport) is recruited into the secretive CIB. He meets its introverted priest-chief Pearse (Philip Quast), the emotionally driven Dr Angela March (Susannah Harker) and the bullish heavyweight Vaughan (Idris Elba). Spinning around Mike's suddenly complicated life are his best friend's jilted fiancée Kirstie (Colette Brown) and old flame Frances (Fiona Dolman). In later hard-hitting episodes we see a 12-year-old boy stab his teacher priest to death ("Mea Culpa") and the capture of a "Leech" ("Persona Non Grata"). This intriguing series ends having tied together most of its threads, but dangles worrying implications at the viewer... not so much to suggest a sequel as to hammer home everything at stake. --Paul Tonks
Incredibly, National Lampoon's Class Reunion was the project that launched John Hughes' writing career before he started directing. On some surreal level, the film's premise is actually quite ingenious. It blends together the nudie flick and stalker/slasher genres that became hugely popular in the early 1980s. The group of classmates reuniting 10 years after graduation are nothing like the idiots of Animal House: they're worse! So when they are hunted through the dilapidated halls by misunderstood psycho Walter Baylor (Blackie Dammett), you can expect lots of black humour. Running for their lives are yuppie-in-the-making Bob Spinnaker (a slimily smooth Gerrit Graham), class nobody Gary Nash, slobbish womaniser Hubert (Stephen Furst playing against his usual shy nerd), scary-looking Satanist Delores and two potheads who are oblivious to the goings-on. Hilarious cameos come from Michael Lerner as mysterious Dr Young, Chuck Berry (!) and the late, great Anne Ramsey (Momma in Throw Momma from the Train) as the world's worst school cook. There were more than a dozen theatrical "Lampoon" movies plus many more for TV and video: Class Reunion may not be subtle, and it's certainly not politically correct, but it endearingly remains one of the daftest from the series' early days . On the DVD: The picture and sound are understandably average, but some effort has been put into the menu page at least; a gallery of 20 photos are the only extra. --Paul Tonks
After Germany invades Poland in 1939 the Nazis decree that 350 000 Warsaw Jews be forcibly moved into an area known as the Warsaw Ghetto. Idealistic teacher Mordechai (Hank Azaria) decides the Jews must rise up against the Nazis and creates the Jewish Fighting Organisation (JFO). Determined to mobilise a resistance against the Nazis Mordechai recruits his friends (David Schwimmer Sadie Frost Donald Sutherland) who are determined to live with honour die with honour and provide hop
Guy Pearce stars in this innovative thriller that begins with a crime and then goes back through time to trace its origins.
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.
Tales From The River Bank
Starring Liam Boyle, Alfie Allen & Ralf Little, Powder captures all the energy and excitement of a band breaking through. Powder tells the story of Liverpool band The Grams as they go on an unflinching journey through the music industry with all the trappings of drugs, sex and rock 'n' roll. From the makers of Awaydays and filmed on location in Ibiza, London, Liverpool and live at the V Festival, Powder is an authentic rock 'n' roll story based on the best-selling novel by Kevin Sampson.
Stephen K Amos: Find The Funny
Broadcast between 1991 and 1997, The Brittas Empire is a sitcom set in Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. It stars Chris Barrie as Gordon Brittas, the prattish, blazered manager who remains loudly oblivious to the fact that his high-handed efforts at running the place result in utter calamity. As his gin-supping, nervous wreck of a wife observes, he thinks he's the oil that lubricates the machine but in reality he's "a bag of grit". This first series introduces Brittas, whose arrival at the new Centre prompts a rash of resignations as his petty and pedantic managerial methods constantly rebound on him. Mishaps in these episodes include a malfunctioning set of automatic doors, a disastrous wedding in the pool and a lost baby. Somehow, however, Brittas' strange sense of idealism keeps him bobbing up as all others sink into despair. The Brittas Empire could either be seen as a satire on the new tier of superfluous middle-management types who flourished in Tory Britain, or a 90s update of the old stereotype of the bureaucratic buffoon. Compared to, say, Alan Partridge, Brittas seems a bit broad and one-dimensional, a sketch-show character stretched beyond its limits. The rest of the cast don't offer much in the way of resistance or support and Brittas very swiftly becomes very annoying. Despite all problems, however, The Brittas Empire was an immense success, attracting over eight-million viewers at its peak. On the DVD: The Brittas Empire include some perfunctory, text-only items, including a Chris Barrie biography and a Brittas Fitness Quiz, as well as a sketch performed at the Royal Variety Performance of 1996, in which Brittas reveals himself as an enthusiast for conformity with EEC regulations. --David Stubbs
In Stephen Hawking's Universe the world's most famous living scientist explores the greatest mysteries of the cosmos. In three landmark instalments he reveals the wonders of the universe as never seen before. Definitive provocative surprising and beautiful Stephen Hawking's Universe is a fascinating look through the mind's eye of one of the finest brains on the planet.
The mother through the daughter's eyes - a family portrait blending intimate conversations, agreements and disagreements, and shred ties of sounds and blood. This intimate portrait of two musical giants by Martha Argerich's daughter Stéphanie has been filmed over two decades and around the world: Warsaw, where Martha Argerich won the Chopin competition first prize; Japan, which hosts a unique Argerich festival; London, where Stephen Kovacevich, Stéphanie's father, lives, works and enjoys intensively Indian food; Belgium, where Martha lives in a house filled with pianos and cats; Argentina, which she left at the age of twelve to study in Vienna, but still conceals valuable family treasures; Switzerland, where Stéphanie and her sister Lyda are currently living. Made up of documentary sequences focusing on the two characters of Martha and Stephen in their everyday lives, in rehearsal and in performance, the film will be largely given over to intimate, delicious anecdotes, and a few scenes in which the family is reunited. A film by Stéphanie Argerich.
Hard-hitting action cross-country adventure...and a government conspiracy that goes all the way to the top! In this pulse-pounding political thriller action-superstar - the late - Charles Bronson is at his rugged best as a man on a mission to protect the First Lady from ruthless assassins who'll stop at nothing to kill her! When veteran Secret Service Agent Jay Killian (Bronson) is assigned to protect the president's pampered and difficult wife (Jill Ireland) he knows she will be
In 1968, one of the deadliest serial killers in U.S. history disappeared without a trace. His identity and cryptic messages remained unsolved for decades...until now. After a fortune-seeking couple uncover a forty-year-old film reel depicting two gruesome murders taken by the killer himself, they set out to solve the mystery and claim the $100,000 reward. But the situation quickly changes, as the hunters become the hunted in this thrilling film starring Shane West, Leslie Bibb and Matt Craven. BONUS FEATURES: Includes an In-Depth Behind-The Scenes featurette
A visually spectacular, ground-breaking TV event, presented by Dermot O'Leary broadcast live from the International Space Station and Mission Control in Houston. With unique access to the International Space Station, Live From Space follows the day-to-day life of three astronauts, Rick Mastracchio, Koichi Wakata, and Mike Hopkins, who have been living and working, whilst orbiting 250 miles above the earth. Here for the first time, filmed by themselves and in their own words, is the incredibl.
Mortal Engines Visionary ï¬lmmaker Peter Jackson presents a startling new adventure unlike any youve seen before. Hundreds of years after our civilisation was destroyed, a new world has emerged. A mysterious young woman named Hester Shaw leads a band of outcasts in the ï¬ght to stop London now a giant predator city on wheels from devouring everything in its path. The Great Wall Starring global superstar MATT DAMON and directed by one of the most breath-taking visual stylists of our time, ZHANG YIMOU (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), The Great Wall tells the story of an elite force making a valiant stand for humanity on the world's most iconic structure. JING TIAN, PEDRO PASCAL, WILLEM DAFOE, and ANDY LAU also star in this sweeping epic. Warcraft The peaceful realm of Azeroth stands on the brink of war as its civilisation faces a fearsome race of invaders: orc warriors ï¬eeing their dying home to colonise another. As a portal opens to connect the two worlds, one army faces destruction, and the other faces extinction. From opposing sides, an unlikely set of heroes are set on a collision course that will decide the fate of their families, their people, and their home.
Richard Marlow (Stephan Moyer, True Blood) is eager for his son, step-daughter and new wife to get along, so plans a family vacation. Wanting to get away from it all, the reclusive Pine Barrens are headed to. But on arrival, an escape from civilisation is far from possible, the main campsite being oversubscribed and full of reminders of the life they are trying to escape. Desperate for real solitude, Richard leads them deeper into the woods. Yet, it s clear that all is not peaceful as anima...
Dangerous Cargo (1954)/Dead Man's Evidence (1962)
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