When Ridley Scott's cut of Blade Runner was finally released in 1993, one had to wonder why the studio hadn't done it right the first time--11 years earlier. This version is so much better, mostly because of what's been eliminated (the ludicrous and redundant voice-over narration and the phoney happy ending) rather than what's been added (a bit more character development and a brief unicorn dream). Star Harrison Ford originally recorded the narration under duress at the insistence of Warner Bros. executives who thought the story needed further "explanation"; he later confessed that he thought if he did it badly they wouldn't use it. (Moral: Never overestimate the taste of movie executives.) The movie's spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles--a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that's the nightmare antithesis of "Sunny Southern California"--is still its most seductive feature, another worldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie's shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line (with Ford on the trail of a murderous android, or "replicant"), makes Blade Runner one of the few science fiction pictures to legitimately claim a place in the film noir tradition. And, as in the best noir, the sleuth discovers a whole lot more (about himself and the people he encounters) than he anticipates. The cast also includes Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah Rutger Hauer and M. Emmet Walsh. --Jim Emerson
Throughout the 1930s Jessie Matthews was Britain's best-loved musical film star her dynamism and gamine charm captivating audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. With a string of box-office hits spotlighting her unique talent it's easy to see how she became so popular – and why she remains so to this day. Showcasing some the era's finest cinema talent – including directors Victor Saville and (in a change from his normal fare) Alfred Hitchcock actors Robert Young and Esmond Knight as well as comedy star (and Matthews' husband) Sonnie Hale – the two films on this volume are presented as transfers from the original film elements in their as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratios. It's love again! A young actress secretly seizes the chance to play the part of an imaginary socialite invented by a gossip columnist. The enigmatic beauty becomes famous but the columnist is mystified when his fictional star appears in person! Waltzes from Viennna A pretty girl works in the bakery in which aspiring composer Johann Strauss is also forced to work by his father. Can she help him achieve his dreams despite his father's objections?
This implausible, but effective 1987 film stars Kevin Costner (Bull Durham, Wyatt Earp) as a naval officer and CIA agent who may not be what he seems. This sexy thriller is an espionage mystery and an enigmatic character study of two men trying to be faithful to the loyalties they hold. Costner begins a torrid love affair with the mistress (Sean Young) of the Secretary of Defense, but when she turns up dead, Costner is implicated in a web of intrigue that threatens national security and exposes personal secrets at the highest levels. The Secretary and his men try to cover up the affair while simultaneously searching for a Soviet mole in their ranks. Featuring an exciting chase sequence through the Washington, D.C., subways, No Way Out is a standard issue thriller that nonetheless keeps the action coming. --Robert Lane
Children of Dune is the sequel to the Sci-Fi Channel's Frank Herbert's Dune (2000), and surpasses that earlier mini-series in every way. The screenplay is again by John Harrison, who has combined Herbert's novels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune into three 84-minute TV movies, and continues the labyrinthine space opera with little concession to the uninitiated. Indeed, this a very rare attempt to put the complexity of printed SF on screen, and if the result is sometimes rather hermetic it is perhaps inevitable when realising Herbert's Byzantine, pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy. The same tableaux-like qualities infuse the new Star Wars films and the similarities between Herbert's and Lucas' worlds have never been more obvious than here. Performances range from excellent--Julie Cox, Alice Krige, Alex Newman (much better here than in the first series) and James McAvoy--to a surprisingly wooden Susan Sarandon. The set-pieces are exceptional, with many individual images sufficiently memorable to stand comparison with the work of Ridley Scott. Production-wise this is surely the most beautiful mini-series ever made, with gorgeous lighting by cinematographer Arthur Reinhart, breathtaking set design from Ondrej Nekvasil and a ravishing score from Brian Tyler. By TV standards the CGI is first-rate and, though rarely looking real, establishes a credible science fictional universe. Even when rather baffling, the production achieves moments of dramatic grandeur and a sense of wonder not experienced in TV SF since Babylon 5. On the DVD: Children of Dune on DVD has one feature-length episode on each disc. The picture is presented at 1.77:1 anamorphically enhanced for widescreen TVs. Shot in high definition, its clarity and detail is superb with virtually no blemishes to the image at all. Colour has a painterly beauty that is remarkable. However, some shots look inaccurately framed, with what was presumably a 4:3 image being a little too closely cropped for widescreen presentation. It's a minor flaw and really only noticeable in some close-ups. Sound is a richly luxuriant Dolby Digital 5.1, which gives no ground to any modern blockbuster movie. Perfunctory extras are confined to the first disc and consist of an interesting but short look at the special effects (13 minutes), a storyboard comparison for one key scene and a photo gallery. --Gary S Dalkin
Realising that the rising Nazi empire will swallow Holland and create the holocaust of every innocent Jew, Corrie ten Boom faces this deadly threat with a surprising remedy: an army comprised of untrained teenagers. Because Hans Poley chooses not to join the Nazi party, he is forced into hiding in the home of Corrie ten Boom. He witnesses the atrocities toward the suffering Jews and decides he must do something. Hans is drawn by resistance fighter, Piet Hartog, and the love of Piet's life - Aty van Woerden (Corrie ten Boom's niece) into an intricate web of espionage and clandestine activities centered in the famous Hiding Place. Hans, Piet, and their friends navigate a deadly labyrinth of challenges to rescue the Jewish people while embarking on an action-packed hunt with the underground, involving Gestapo hijacks, daring rescues, and stunning miracles. The film climaxes in the true, breath-taking rescue of an entire orphanage of Jewish children marked for mass execution by Hitler's assassins. Extras: Behind the Scenes Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer
Nineteen years ago, Daniel Holden (Aden Young) was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of his teenage girlfriend, Hanna Dean. Thanks to newly discovered DNA evidence and the efforts of his sister Amantha and lawyer Jon Stern, Daniel's conviction has been vacated and he's returned to his mother Janet's home in Paulie, Georgia. But not everyone is convinced of his innocence - nor is his future as a free man secure. Series Two finds Daniel committed to living in the present and making choices that prove frustrating for some of the Holden/Talbot family. Unfortunately, there are many places and faces in Paulie that remind Daniel of the past his incarceration, Hanna, and his role the night of Hanna's murder. He's forced to the realisation that he must understand and accept what really happened if he's ever going to know any peace, a conclusion that shapes his determination to do whatever it takes to finally put his past behind him, no matter how high the price.
'Our sorrow was conceived long before our birth...' When sisters Su-mi (Lim Soo-jeong) and Su-yeon (Mun Geun-yeong) return home from a sanitarium having supposedly recovered their health their stepmother Eun-joo (Yum Jung-ah) welcomes them back. However elder sister Su-mi intentionally avoids her and younger sibling Su-yeon shows a smack of fear for her. Soon strange things begin to happen in the house. Footsteps are heard and Eun-joo's birds are mysteriously poisoned. Assuming Su-yeon is behind the inauspicious incidents the stepmother locks her in the closet and when Su-mi learns about the cruel punishment conflict between the stepmother and two sisters becomes more bitter than ever... Based on the classic Korean folk tale 'Janghwa Hongryeon' Kim Ji-woon's accomplished chiller is a uniquely lush addition to the best of Asian cinema.
A monster movie from Tobe Hooper the director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist. A hundred years ago an intrepid explorer opened a hotel on the banks of lake Sobek. The main attraction was in enormous Nile crocodile and folklore has it that the croc went berserk one night and ate nearly everyone in sight. The locals burnt the hotel down to the ground thinking the creature would perish. How wrong they were. The first night a group of teens moor in a tiny inlet and begin to party one of them Duncan discovers a huge nest on the shore and steals one of the eggs and hides it in Clare's rucksack. When a 20 foot 600 pound mother croc is angry look out! One by one it stalks out the group. One bite from its three inch teeth exerts 40 tons of pressure that will split you apart like matchwood. One death stare from this ""Mother"" and you are history... with sixty-five million years of practice the crocodile has learned a thing or two about killing.
Another helping of real life warts and all served up by Jack and Victor! Episodes Comprise: 1. Hoaliday 2. Swottin' 3. Cairds 4. Big Yin 5. Oot 6. Aff
As one of the most acclaimed films of its time Sydney Pollack's dance marathon masterpiece picked up an amazing 9 Academy Award nominations in 1969. With dazzling performances from the entire cast it is easy to see why this film is universally regarded as a true movie classic. In the dark days of the depression dance marathons became a way for desperate people to compete for prize money. Events would last for days as contestants pushed themselves beyond the point of exhaustion while the barbarous crowds watched on wagering money for sport and profit. Against this backdrop the lives of a disparate group of contestants become intertwined. Brought together by chance they move relentlessly around the dance floor in search of a dream... the clock ticks on... which of them will survive?
Artic researchers discover a huge frozen spaceling inside a crash-landed UFO then fight for their lives after the murderous being (a pre-Gunsmoke James Arness) emerges from icy captivity. Will other creatures soon follow? The famed final words of this film are both warning and answer: ""Keep watching the skies!""
One would think that after the aquatic horror of the previous three Jaws movies the remnants of the beleaguered Brodie family would be happily nursing their hydrophobia somewhere in Kansas. However, in Jaws--The Revenge, the fourth episode of the saga, we find that Ellen (Lorraine Gary) is still living on a tiny island, and her eldest son Michael (Lance Guest) has become, of all things, a marine biologist. Even when her younger son is slaughtered by yet another giant shark, all Ellen can do to take her mind off it is go to the Bahamas and gaze at the sea. There she embarks on a romantic affair with salty sea-pilot Hoagie (a nice turn from Michael Caine), but this peace is shattered as the shark begins to target her grandchildren and friends. Where this monster-with-a-grudge comes from, bearing in mind that the sharks in each of the previous movies got blown up or electrocuted, is something of a conundrum. But logic is clearly not a concern in a script that demands only that this film should bear some tenuous relation to its predecessors. The ghost of the far-superior original looms large here--in the form of Ellen's flashbacks (which actually use footage from the earlier films), scenes which overtly refer to moments from the series (Michael's son mimics him at the dinner table, as Michael once did to his own father) and a set littered with conspicuously large photos of Roy Scheider. There are nice touches--Michael and his Jamaican partner Jake (Mario Van Peebles) fit the shark with a heart monitor which lets off an eerie blipping sound when it approaches, it is nice to see a romance between more "mature" characters portrayed so warmly, and when the maternal Ellen forms the resolve to protect her family it even looks like she may briefly become a sort of geriatric Ripley character (a la Aliens). But with a shark that has never looked more rubbery, set pieces which lack suspense and invention and a short running time (only 86 minutes) it is hard to shake off the sensation that this is a made-for-TV film. Those wanting a dose of tongue-in-cheek killer-creature action would be better off avoiding this wet fish and taking in a Jaws rip-off with a little more bite, such as Deep Blue Sea or Deep Rising. --Paul Philpott
With all the men away to war Lily falls madly in love and married a handsome Canadian soldier Charlie Travis. But Charlie is shipped off to the front and Lily discovers she's expecting his baby not knowing if she will ever see him alive again.
As the world awaited what should have been a routine lift-off for the space shuttle Challenger unattended complications with equipment turned the mission in to a ticking time-bomb. Adding to the excitement of the mission was the presence of Christa McAuliffe (played by Karen Allen) a small town school teacher chosen from hundreds of candidates to teach the first lesson in space. This compelling account offers a poignant look into the lives of each of the seven Challenger crew members during the months leading up to the launch. Not only devoted to astronauts these heroic seven were also devoted mothers fathers husbands and wives. But during these moments we witness bewildered corporate inability to resolve an issue before it becomes a catastrophe of the highest order. Excitement frustration and grief unfold as the true story of the space shuttle disaster is revealed.
Charles Fuller adapted his Pulitzer Prize-winning A Soldier's Play for the big screen in 1984. The film version, A Soldier's Story is essentially a murder mystery, played out against a background of inter and intra-racial conflict at a Second World War training camp. To the consternation of his white opposite number at the camp, a black captain (Howard W Rollins) arrives to investigate the death of a black sergeant (Adolph Caesar). Suspicion immediately falls on a pair of bigoted white officers but as the tale unfolds in a series of flashbacks, it soon becomes clear that a different kind of prejudice is also at work. Assisted by some excellent performances, director Norman Jewison opens the story out from its stage roots. There's a wonderful baseball scene (filmed on location at Little Rock) in which the double standards of Dennis Lipscomb's fidgety white captain are exposed with neat irony; he'll cheer his successful black team all the way home in the name of sport. His gradual, forced liberalisation provides the film with an important comic element. A Soldier's Story wears its heart on its sleeve without being superficial in any way. It's a compelling tale, well told and often highly entertaining, in which nobody gets off lightly, least of all the good guy. On the DVD: The widescreen presentation helps give an epic feel to what could, in other hands, have been a claustrophobic production. The picture quality is fine. But the monaural sound track is often rather muffled, leaving you straining to catch some of the dialogue. This is also a shame because the blues music--an inspired job by Herbie Hancock, assisted by Patti Labelle singing her lungs out as bar owner Big Mary--is an important element of the film's underlying theme and deserves to be better heard. The extras are valuable. Norman Jewison's commentary is detailed and sensitive. As he says, the film deals with "ideas in racism never seen on screen before", and he acknowledges the strength of his actors in getting those ideas across. "March to Freedom" is an excellent short documentary which features the moving testimonies of black servicemen on the insufferable prejudices they encountered while attempting to defend their country during the Second World War; A Soldier's Story is thus put sharply into context. --Piers Ford
Don Henley helped define the 70's as a member of the enormously successful rock band the Eagles before launching an impressive solo career that includes such hits as 'Dirty Laundry' 'The Boys Of Summer' and 'All She Wants To Do Is Dance'. On May 25 2000 he returned to his Texas roots for a remarkable concert recorded before an enthusiastic audience at Fair Park Music Hall in Dallas. This rock legend's live performance captures all the passion satire and originality that fans around the world most treasure in his influential music. Tracklist: 'Dirty Laundry' 'Sunset Grill' 'Workin' It' 'Taking You Home' 'The Boys Of Summer' 'Lilah' 'Everything Is Different Now' 'The End Of Innocence' 'All She Wants To Do Is Dance' 'New York Minute' 'Talking To The Moon' 'They're Not Here They're Not Coming' 'The Heart Of The Matter' 'Desperado' 'The Long Run' 'My Thanksgiving' and 'Hotel California'.
Rodney Dangerfield makes the grade with this laugh-riot comedy that's in a class of its own! Higher education will never be the same when co-stars Sally Kellerman Robert Downey Jr. Sam Kinison Ned Beatty and more join the maniac as he takes on the brainiacs! Thornton Melon's (Dangerfield) son is a college misfit so Thornton's lending some fatherly support...by enrolling as a fellow freshman! Who cares if the owner of the ""Tall and Fat"" clothing empire never finished high school
In this sequel to the heartwarming classic My Friend Flicka, Ken McLaughlin (Roddy McDowall) sets out to raise the rebellious offspring of the famous mare. Although the young albino colt presents many challenges, Thunderhead also proves very helpful. And when it becomes apparent that the beautiful Thunderhead can race, Ken enters him into competition. But after an injury and an unexpected confrontation, Ken realises that the majestic animal is destined for a life of freedom amidst the stunning landscape.
Matt Dillon Sean Young and Max Von Sydow star in this chilling romantic thriller from writer-director James Dearden (Fatal Attraction). Troubled by the death of her twin sister Ellen Carlson (Sean Young) unwittingly falls in love with an ambitious young man Jonathan Corliss (Matt Dillon). As she investigates Dorothy's death a chance encounter reveals how little Ellen really knows about her husband and what she doesn't know may kill her in this heart-stopping suspense thriller based on Ira Levin's best-selling novel.
A young girl is murdered and an Inspector calls on a prosperous Yorkshire household investigating the sad circumstances behind her death. Each one of the family has a secret - and each one is partly responsible for the girl's fate. The determined Inspector must prove their collective guilt and the shattering denouncement reveals why. An adaptation of J.B. Priestley's classic play.
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