Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly star as Laurel & Hardy in the untold story of the world's greatest comedy act. Stan & Ollie wonderfully portrays the unique and precious partnership of the legendary duo as they set out on a tour of Britain in the twilight of their career. Whilst they face an uncertain future the charm and beauty of their performances shine through, making each other and their audiences laugh, re-connecting them with legions of adoring fans, old and new. With stunning performances from Coogan and Reilly, critics are calling Stan & Ollie absolute perfection' (IGN), incredibly funny' (The Telegraph), an absolute delight' (Radio Times) and a film which reaches genuinely sublime heights' (The Times).
Robert Redford stars as a wrongly convicted five star General who turns his fellow inmates into an army and threatens to take over the prison.
Now you see it. You're amazed. You can't believe it. Your eyes open wider. It's horrible, but you can't look away. There's no chance for you. No escape. You're helpless, helpless. There's just one chance, if you can scream. Throw your arms across your eyes and scream, scream for your life!" And scream Fay Wray does most famously in this monster classic, one of the greatest adventure films of all time, which even in an era of computer-generated wizardry remains a marvel of stop-motion animation. Robert Armstrong stars as famed adventurer Carl Denham, who is leading a "crazy voyage" to a mysterious, uncharted island to photograph "something monstrous ... neither beast nor man". Also aboard is waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and Bruce Cabot as big lug John Driscoll, the ship's first mate. King Kong's first half-hour is steady going, with engagingly corny dialogue ("Some big, hard-boiled egg gets a look at a pretty face and bang, he cracks up and goes sappy") and ominous portent that sets the stage for the horror to come. Once our heroes reach Skull Island, the movie comes to roaring, chest-thumping, T-rex-slamming, snake-throttling, pterodactyl-tearing, native-stomping life. King Kong was ranked by the American Film Institute as among the 50 best films of the century. Kong making his last stand atop the Empire State Building is one of the film's most indelible and iconic images. --Donald Liebenson, Amazon.comOn the DVD: Although a little light on extras, this is happily the Director's Cut, restoring scenes that were censored after the film's original 1933 run, including Kong peeling off Fay Wray's clothes like a banana, and our hirsute hero using unfortunate natives as dental floss. The ratio of 4:3 is correct for a film of this age; the picture and (mono) sound are perfectly acceptable without being revelatory. The 25-minute "making of" documentary from 1992 is a 60th anniversary tribute to the film, which details all of Kong's many ground-breaking contributions to cinema, from Willis O'Brien's use of stop-motion and rear projection effects to Max Steiner's music score. There are contributions from film historians, modern admirers of the film including composer Jerry Goldsmith--who admits that Steiner created a template that Hollywood composers are still following--and a few surviving participants such as sound effects man Murray Spivak. Apparently, director Merian C. Cooper's original idea was to capture live gorillas, transport them to the island of Komodo and film them fighting the giant lizards! Thanks to Willis O'Brien's pioneering effects work good sense prevailed and a cinema classic was born. --Mark Walker
Long-awaited, long-overdue: The Professionals as you have never seen them before. Bodie and Doyle need little by way of introduction, but if the series had at all escaped you since its debut in 1977 their boss George Cowley, head of CI5, couldn't put it more succinctly than his opening gambit: anarchy, acts of terror, crimes against the public. To combat it I've got special men experts from the army, the police, from every service. These are The Professionals . Featuring the perfect ensemble cast of Martin Shaw, Gordon Jackson (completely against type here) and the much-missed Lewis Collins, the series ran for 57 action-packed episodes and made an immediate impact on British and then international audiences which has sustained 40 years. But the series has never looked this good. Painstakingly restored from the camera-original negatives the series could have been made yesterday. No matter how many times you have seen The Professionals, this is a new experience, like seeing it for the first time. FEATURES ON THIS NEW EDITION: Brand-new restorations of the first 13 episodes from the camera-original negatives Brand-new 5.1 tracks from original sound elements Remastered original as-broadcast mono tracks Remastered music-only tracks featuring Laurie Johnson's original scores Photo galleries featuring hundreds of rare and previously unseen images Reinstated original main and end titles Without Walls documentary from 1996 featuring interviews with the creative driving force behind the series PDF material featuring scripts and memorabilia Archive footage featuring additional material, advert break bumpers, US sales trailer and more English HOH subtitles
Every episode of this much loved classic crime TV show featuring that unforgettable theme tune! A brilliant fast-paced violent and hard-hitting action series The Professionals chronicles the lives and exploits of the men of covert British security unit CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5) in particular the unit's top operative partnership of ex-cop Ray Doyle (Martin Shaw) and former mercenary and ex-SAS paratrooper William Bodie (Lewis Collins) and their superior officer the gruff but
It's a crime what prison can do to a girl! 1983 marked a landmark in cinematic history - the birth of the 'Chicks in Chains' genre. The idea of babes behind bars trapped in close confines with the ever present threat of violence and promise of titillation proved a massive hit with audiences who flocked to see Chained Heat in the US and on our side of the pond Scrubbers. Scrubbers was a bleak look at life in an English girls' borstal and despite it's fair share of bare breasts demanded by the genre it is perhaps most notable for the early career appearances by the likes of Kathy Burke Robbie Coltrane Miriam Margolyes and Pam St. Clement (Pat Butcher in Eastenders) and for appearing uncannily like a youth version of the cult Australian TV series Prisoner: Cell Block H. Taking this caged heat idea to a new level Scrubbers actually sees a recently released lesbian inmate breaking back into the prison to be reunited with her lover. Meanwhile another inmate moved to a separate cell from her girlfriend breaks out of prison re-offends and is luckily incarcerated only one cell block away from her beloved. Unfortunately her former lover has since found a new companion. As passions burn and tensions run high betrayal bitchiness and jealousy all play their part in leading the inmates into a vicious feud that can only end in tears.
Robert Redford stars as a wrongly convicted five star General who turns his fellow inmates into an army and threatens to take over the prison.
Like It Is is much like watching a train wreck--the very idea of it is repellent and yet you perversely can't avert your eyes. While its urban grittiness and sooty veneer entranced some critics who mistook its violent, netherworld neorealism for art, Like It Is offers little in the way of redemption, positive gay imaging or even particularly good narrative. Paul Oremland directed this venture about a young, gay Blackpool tough named Craig (Steve Bell) who bare-knuckle boxes for money. He ultimately moves to London in search of a better life and falls in with the trendy London gay-club scene, meeting and falling for a handsome record producer named Matt (Ian Rose) and his wealthy boss (played by the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey). The better life is quickly tainted by disillusion and misery, much as is the viewing experience. Steve Bell is, in real life, a featherweight boxing champion in Britain and therefore brings an urgent and raw vitality to the lead, but the characters as a whole are either irritating or unsympathetic, and it's ultimately difficult to find anyone to care for, or a story worth empathising with. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com
Perhaps the most easily parodied action series of its era, The Professionals was the one about the gruff but fatherly counter-terrorist top cop Cowley (Gordon Jackson) and his favourite surrogate sons, the curly haired ex-copper Ray Doyle (Martin Shaw) and taciturn-but-pouting ex-mercenary William Bodie (Lewis Collins). As set out by series creator Brian Clemens (veteran of the more fantastical Avengers), their job was to stop threats to the government, visiting dignitaries or the general public "by any means necessary". What this boiled down to was dashing about, leaping out of cars, getting into thump-happy fistfights, leering at every "bird" who passed by as if they were trying to prove something, wearing eye-abusing late-70s leisure wear well beyond the sell-by date, potting baddies with guns hauled out of their smart shoulder holsters, and occasionally choking back manly tears when another of the trio was wounded. All three leads were professionals of another stripe--the sort of actors who could soar with a good script and do their best to sell a weak one--and they were generally set against a parade of top-flight British character acting talent along with sundry sit-com/pin-up refugee disposable girlfriends and suspects. One strange, if understandable, element of the premise is that CI5 tackle all manner of Greek, Middle Eastern, Soviet and radical nutcase groups--with the odd racist Klansman, corrupt civil servant and dubious big business tycoon thrown in to prove they're not fascists--but almost never have anything to do with the Irish terrorist groups who were the main focus of the organisation's real-life counterparts from 1977 to 1983. --Kim Newman
Every episode of this much loved classic crime TV show featuring that unforgettable theme tune!A brilliant, fast-paced, violent and hard-hitting action series, The Professionals chronicles the lives and exploits of the men of covert British security unit CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), in particular the unit's top operative partnership of ex-cop Ray Doyle (Martin Shaw) and former mercenary and ex-SAS paratrooper William Bodie (Lewis Collins) and their superior officer, the gruff but fatherly George Cowley (Gordon Jackson).
What happens when a young girl is sentenced to Borstal and locked away from the everyday world?Blazingly well acted by a cast including Pam St Clement Kathy Burke Robbie Coltrane Miriam Margoyles and many others some of whom had actually done time 'Scrubbers' exposes a brutal society in which the strong survive and the weak are no match for the cruelties of the system.Through the hatred of lesbian Carol and promiscuous teenage mother Annetta we follow the endless rounds of violence bitching and brawling that have made Britain's borstals notorious breeding grounds for crime.
Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly star as Laurel & Hardy in the untold story of the world's greatest comedy act. Stan & Ollie wonderfully portrays the unique and precious partnership of the legendary duo as they set out on a tour of Britain in the twilight of their career. Whilst they face an uncertain future the charm and beauty of their performances shine through, making each other and their audiences laugh, re-connecting them with legions of adoring fans, old and new. With stunning performances from Coogan and Reilly, critics are calling Stan & Ollie absolute perfection' (IGN), incredibly funny' (The Telegraph), an absolute delight' (Radio Times) and a film which reaches genuinely sublime heights' (The Times).
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