The Sitter may be the last movie featuring the "heavy" version of Jonah Hill. With the many pounds he's since lost, many movie-industry minds are wondering if the Jonah Hill-ness of his screen persona, flaunted so prodigiously in the likes of Knocked Up, Get Him to the Greek, and Superbad, has disappeared from the scales too. But until Jonah 2.0 gets his chance, The Sitter couldn't capture his trash-talking, man-child, king-of-comeback essence more boldly, more lovingly, or with such blatant vulgarity. Hill plays Noah, a jobless twentysomething layabout still living with his divorced mum along with the delusion that he has a hot girlfriend (she only keeps him around for oral talents that are unrelated to speech). As a favour that might help Mum with her own sad love life, he agrees to a one-night babysitting stand for the neighbours and their three wildly dissimilar but equally messed-up children. The night progresses through slapstick, farce, adventure, romance, danger, pathos, and eventual catharsis for everyone. (Unfortunately there's a touch of maudlin, sentimental corn in the mix too.) The children are as important to the escapades as Noah and are the primary source of his stupid/smooth shtick that mixes clever put-downs, terrified jabbering, and hilariously relentless patter of urban slang vernacular. Noah's spoiled charges are two boys--an anxiety-wracked 13-year-old and a 10-year-old Nicaraguan adoptee with severe anger and pyromania issues--and a precocious 8-year-old-girl who's heavily into make-up, hip-hop, and a score of other age-inappropriate behaviours. As the four of them hurtle deeper into the night, the situations become more antically treacherous with drug dealers, gangster thugs, police officers, and upper-crust snobs as part of the mix, along with their knives, cocaine, diamonds, alcohol, and guns. Director David Gordon Green, whose unusual career has gone from art house (George Washington, All the Real Girls) to raunchy bromance (Pineapple Express, Your Highness), supplants formal technique with the off-kilter and oft-unseemly style of Jonah Hill vs. the world. Green sometimes evokes the flow of surreality that Martin Scorsese took to unnatural ends in After Hours, only with more dirty bits and a lot more full-on crude laughs. Nearly everyone in the large supporting cast makes an excellent foil for the star's constant streetwise riffing, especially Sam Rockwell, who digs in to his role as a psychotic but emotionally conflicted drug dealer always on the lookout for new best friends. But it is Jonah Hill who sits firmly, even heavily in the driver's seat. It's a great place to flash his better-honed actorly chops along with his beloved version 1.0 comedic gift. --Ted Fry
The SitterThe Sitter may be the last movie featuring the "heavy" version of Jonah Hill. With the many pounds he's since lost, many movie-industry minds are wondering if the Jonah Hill-ness of his screen persona, flaunted so prodigiously in the likes of Knocked Up, Get Him to the Greek, and Superbad, has disappeared from the scales too. But until Jonah 2.0 gets his chance, The Sitter couldn't capture his trash-talking, man-child, king-of-comeback essence more boldly, more lovingly, or with such blatant vulgarity. Hill plays Noah, a jobless twentysomething layabout still living with his divorced mum along with the delusion that he has a hot girlfriend (she only keeps him around for oral talents that are unrelated to speech). As a favour that might help Mum with her own sad love life, he agrees to a one-night babysitting stand for the neighbours and their three wildly dissimilar but equally messed-up children. The night progresses through slapstick, farce, adventure, romance, danger, pathos, and eventual catharsis for everyone. (Unfortunately there's a touch of maudlin, sentimental corn in the mix too.) The children are as important to the escapades as Noah and are the primary source of his stupid/smooth shtick that mixes clever put-downs, terrified jabbering, and hilariously relentless patter of urban slang vernacular. Noah's spoiled charges are two boys--an anxiety-wracked 13-year-old and a 10-year-old Nicaraguan adoptee with severe anger and pyromania issues--and a precocious 8-year-old-girl who's heavily into make-up, hip-hop, and a score of other age-inappropriate behaviours. As the four of them hurtle deeper into the night, the situations become more antically treacherous with drug dealers, gangster thugs, police officers, and upper-crust snobs as part of the mix, along with their knives, cocaine, diamonds, alcohol, and guns. Director David Gordon Green, whose unusual career has gone from art house (George Washington, All the Real Girls) to raunchy bromance (Pineapple Express, Your Highness), supplants formal technique with the off-kilter and oft-unseemly style of Jonah Hill vs. the world. Green sometimes evokes the flow of surreality that Martin Scorsese took to unnatural ends in After Hours, only with more dirty bits and a lot more full-on crude laughs. Nearly everyone in the large supporting cast makes an excellent foil for the star's constant streetwise riffing, especially Sam Rockwell, who digs in to his role as a psychotic but emotionally conflicted drug dealer always on the lookout for new best friends. But it is Jonah Hill who sits firmly, even heavily in the driver's seat. It's a great place to flash his better-honed actorly chops along with his beloved version 1.0 comedic gift. --Ted Fry CyrusMumblecore auteurs the Duplass brothers (Baghead, The Puffy Chair) dip their toes in the precarious waters of Hollywood by casting well-known actors in Cyrus. But their devotion to clumsy, uncomfortable people remains: John (John C. Reilly, Step Brothers) has barely left his apartment in the seven years since Jamie (Catherine Keener, Lovely & Amazing) divorced him, so Jamie demands he come to a party--where, miraculously, he meets Molly (Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler), who seems like the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, Molly comes with some baggage: her 22-year-old son, Cyrus (Jonah Hill, Superbad). To say Molly and Cyrus are close is an understatement, and John finds himself in a battle of wills with Molly as the prize. The Duplass brothers seek a kind of cinematic simplicity--to call it purity would be too highbrow for these aggressively pedestrian filmmakers--and when it works, it brings the viewer in intimate contact with life in its ordinary, essential glory. When it doesn't work, it's just dull. Despite its flatfooted plot, Cyrus works pretty well. The higher calibre of the cast helps--Reilly, Tomei, Hill, and Keener are all excellent, and much of the movie is genuinely funny. Don't expect elegance, but sometimes, something plain can please. --Bret Fetzer
The complete 3rd series of the crime action series starring John Thaw Dennis Waterman and Garfield Morgan. Featuring all 13 episodes from the 1976 season the episodes have been digitally restored from the original materials and presented with a new Dolby 5.1 track. Episode Titles: 1. Selected Target 2. In From The Cold 3. Visiting Fireman 4. Tomorrow Man 5. Taste of Fear 6. Bad Apple 7. May 8. Sweet Smell of Succession 9. Down to You Brother 10. Pay Off 11. Loving Arms 12. Lady Luck 13. On the Run
Wealthy Jack Bauer (Urich) comes to the aid of a mother Laura McKillin whose daughter has been abducted. Together to their horror they discover a dedicated ring of professional child snatchers...
A gripping mix of friendship, violence and redemption erupts in the contemporary backwoods of the South in this adaptation of Larry Brown's novel, celebrated for its grit and deeply moving core. Directed by David Gordon Green Pineapple Express, the film stars Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage in the title role as the hard-living, hot-tempered ex con Joe Ransom, who is just trying to dodge his instincts for trouble until he meets a kid Tye Sheridan Tree of Life, Mud who awakens in him a fierc.
Stronger is the inspiring true story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become the symbol of hope following the infamous 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff, a 27-year-old, working-class Boston man who was at the marathon to try and win back his ex-girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Waiting for her at the finish line when the blast occurs, he loses both his legs in the attack. After regaining consciousness in the hospital, Jeff is able to help law enforcement identify one of the bombers, but his own battle has just begun. He tackles months of physical and emotional rehabilitation with the unwavering support of Erin and his family. It is Jeff's deeply personal account of the heroic journey that tests a family's bond, defines a community's pride and inspires his inner courage to overcome devastating adversity. Filled with raw emotion, humanity and humor, Stronger is the inspirational real-life story of the man who became the living embodiment of Boston Strong. The film also stars Academy Award® nominee Miranda Richardson and is directed by David Gordon Green.
David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, Your Highness) directs this hilarious road movie starring Paul Rudd (Anchorman, Knocked Up) and Emile Hirsh (Alpha Dog, Into the Wild) about two road workers forced to spend the summer together on a desolate highway in Texas. After Alvin (Rudd) a serious-minded outdoors type has reluctantly agreed to employ his girlfriend s lazy younger brother, Lance (Hirsch), and is already regretting it. Acquiring some lethal moonshine from an oddball trucker, drunken...
All the Queen's Men/Nightmaster/Buster/Love the Hard Way Four Great films!
Action-packed Season Three develops major characters and plot lines brewing over the last couple of years. The Mayor, this season's major baddie, wants to become an invincible demon by slaughtering everyone at Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony but he's going to torture them all by giving his speech first. Bad-girl vampire-slayer Faith wants to get one over on Buffy and becomes even more rotten. Angel comes back from hell but isn't sure what to do about his girlfriend. Willow meets her evil gay vampire duplicate from another dimension. Xander loses his virginity but still has to contemplate his essential uselessness. Cordelia gets less whiny and has to work in a dress-shop when her father becomes bankrupt. Giles wears tweed and drinks tea, though it is revealed that he used to be a warlock and in a punk band. Besides the soap opera, there are monsters, curses and vampires (inevitably). --Kim Newman On the DVD: The DVDs are presented in a standard television 4:3 picture ratio and in a clear Dolby sound that does full justice both to the sparkling dialogue and to the always impressive indie-rock and orchestral scores. Special features include an overview of Season Three by its creator Joss Whedon, and by writers Marti Noxon, David Fury, Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson and documentaries on the weapons, clothes special effects of the show and the speech/verbal tone which makes it what it is-"Buffyspeak". The episodes "Helpless", "Bad Girls", "Consequences" and "Earshot" have commentaries by, Fury, Petrie, director James Gershman and Espenson, in which we find out some fascinating details about the way the scripts mutate and about the particular illuminations added to scripts by actors' performances. After complaints about the Season 2 DVD packaging, the disc envelopes include a protective coating. --Roz Kaveney
At the heart of the first years of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the romance between Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), slayer of all things evil, and hunky Angel (David Boreanaz), the tortured vampire destined to walk the earth with a soul. The second season of Buffy took the Buffy-Angel pas de deux from ecstasy to agony in a now-classic plot arc that catapulted the show from WB teen drama to true TV greatness. You see, if the cursed Angel ever experiences true happiness for a moment, he'll revert to being an evil vampire again. And guess what happens after Buffy and Angel finally declare their love for one another and consummate their relationship... Buffy found its true momentum during the second season, as geeky Xander (Nicholas Brendon) fell in love with popular girl Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) gave up her crush on Xander in favour of werewolf boy Oz (Seth Green), and watcher Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) began a sweetly tentative relationship with computer teacher (and witch) Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte). Mayhem came to Sunnydale, though, in the form of evil vampires Drusilla (Juliet Landau) and Spike (drolly wicked James Marsters), who were more than ready to aid and abet Angel as he turned bad. It all sounds like horror-action mayhem (and there are great fight scenes), but Buffy took on its plotlines with amazing depth, intelligence, and humour. And oh, man, the love story! Buffy and Angel's tragic relationship is one of the most heartbreaking you'll ever find. Buffy's final dilemma finds her having to save the world at Angel's expense, and Gellar (who deserves a passel of Emmys for her work) is phenomenal at telegraphing Buffy's swirling conflicts between love and duty. This is some of the best TV ever made, period. --Mark Englehart
After the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer became a ratings success the show was renewed with a bigger budget and twice as many episodes. Seeds are sown through the early episodes for many of the stunning plot developments later in the season: there's a slow burn for the relationships building between Buffy and Angel (no surprise), Giles and Jenny (nice surprise), and Xander and Cordelia (huge surprise). Most importantly, we're introduced to important semi-regulars Spike and Drusilla ("School Hard"), Oz ("Inca Mummy Girl") and fellow Slayer Kendra ("What's My Line Part 1"). Their appearances tackle youth issues such as sibling rivalry, sexual maturity and rejection. But nothing that came before it prepared audiences for the latter half of season 2. In the extraordinary double act of "Surprise" and "Innocence" every aspect of the show grows up in a big hurry: the result of Buffy sleeping with Angel is a series of tragedies everyone is powerless to predict or prevent, a piece of powerful storytelling conveyed with pared-down dialogue and remarkable performances from the young cast. All of these threads are tied together then torn apart by the two-part finale "Becoming". With a cliffhanger ending to rival The Empire Strikes Back, the second chapter of Buffy The Vampire Slayer closes in tantalising style leaving everything at stake. --Paul Tonks On the DVD: The computer-animated menu opens this gorgeous box set in style with a tour through a dark and oppressive cemetery, a lavish display of graphics that's all the more impressive when compared to the uneventful DVD for the first season. Most of the extra features are concentrated on the last disc, which includes the obligatory biographies, trailers and TV spots that add little value to hardcore fans but serve as a good introduction to the world of Buffy for non-adepts. The three featurettes are captivating: "Designing Buffy" offers a wealth of information about the set designs, and even includes a walk through of Buffy's home; "A Buffy Bestiary" features every monster from the second season, and "Beauty and the Beats" explores the make-up artistry and special effects. There are also brief cast interviews, in which James Masters ("Spike") reveals his American accent. All in all the extras make a worthy accompaniment to the spectacular season 2 episodes, though one might regret that Joss Whedon did not offer a commentary on the double bill season finale "Becoming". --Celine Martig
Former Major League pitcher Kenny Powers (danny McBride) used to have it all: fame, endorsements, and a lucrative contract. Now, after hard living took its toll on his fastball, Kenny has found himself crashing with his brother's family and teaching gym class at the North Carolina middle school he once attended. Wherever he goes, Kenny wreaks havoc with his boorish behaviour and even makes a pre-emptive romantic strike on his former high school squeeze, now a teacher engaged to the school principal. Out of baseball, and discarded by the game he abused so well, can Kenny succeed in his plot to triumphantly return to the big leagues?
In the third series of Angel the titular vampire with a soul was forced to stand alone thanks to the (temporary) death of his beloved Buffy and her show's move to a new network, with no crossover between the two allowed. He returns from seeking peace in a demon-haunted monastery to find the LA Angel Investigations team fighting supernatural crime in his absence. Fred is still haunted by the nightmare dimension from which they rescued her; Cordelia's visions get ever more painful and debilitating. The schemes of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart become every more imaginative and dragon lady Lilah Morgan becomes even more of an enemy when lusting after Angel. Unbelievably, Darla, Angel's vampire sire and lover, turns up, pregnant with his child and is tortured by inexplicable motherly feelings as well as a raging thirst for human blood. For a few episodes things go pretty well--but Angel's enemies, both those he has made in his quest for redemption and those he made when he was unadulterated evil, are still out there. Stephanie Romanov comes into her silky own in this series, making Lilah Morgan all the more seductively evil because she is clear about the choices she has made; the satanic law-firm of Wolfram and Hart are this show's most inspired creation. As the series moves to its close, Wesley (Alexis Denisof) has hard choices to make. The devastating climax is compulsive viewing and this series also contains one of the most impressive single episodes of the entire show: in "Waiting in the Wings" writer, director and creator Joss Whedon comes up with a classic ghost story as Angel and his crew go to the ballet and find a performance that is literally timeless. On the DVD: Angel, Series 3 DVD box set is generously stocked with extra features--a season overview, commentaries on three episodes, a documentary on the way scripts are transferred to screen, and an overview of the story of the doomed vampire Darla. Of especial interest to fans are two deleted scenes--one from the ballet episode "Waiting in the Wings", in which Amy Acker (Fred) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley) dance a pas de deux at once touching and hilarious, and the other a hilarious scene from "Cordy", the cute situation comedy in which Cordelia stars in an alternate universe. --Roz Kaveney
The latest 'bro-mance' from team Apatow (the guys who brought us Superbad, Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Pineapple Express is the story of Dale Denton (Seth Rogan) and Saul Silver (James Franco), a pothead and his dealer who accidentally get caught up in a drug war between two gangs --with some corrupt cops, high school girls and smalltime henchmen thrown in for good measure. At its core, Pineapple Express is a stoner comedy--a tale of two giggling, loveable oafs in way over their heads. This formula has made for some entertaining comedy over the years -- Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke and Dave Chappell's Half Baked being two of the best examples. What sets Pineapple Express apart from these silly classics however, is the consistency of the humour, the perfect chemistry between Rogan and Franco and the giddily ridiculous action sequences. The movie retains the sweetness that is present in most of Apatow's films, making the characters poor choices and violent actions somehow justifiable. The site gags, pop culture references and perfectly timed non-sequiturs only enhance the hilarity. Director David Gordon Green, known mostly for the understated and reflective films George Washington and All the Real Girls, seemed like an odd choice for such a raucous and over-the-top comedy, but it turns out Green's stamp is all over this film (as is his long-time cinematographer, Tim Orr's) and together manage to turn Pineapple Express into much more than the sum of its parts. --Kira Canny
A bawdy and funny British comedy gem! Gerald (Ian Charleson) in the throes of a midlife crisis develops an overriding passion for his new sports car-an E-Type Jaguar. His neglected wife Jacqueline (Julie Walters) becomes jealous and retaliates: she takes the car out for spin and encounters the randy car salesman Kevin (Vincent Riotta) and decides to seduce him. Car Trouble is a fast paced comic tour de force with one-liners a-plenty and featuring a hilarious climax (in more ways than one) as wife and salesman get stuck in a very compromising position - in Geralds car!
Al Pacino stars as the titular character A.J. Manglehorn in this drama directed by David Gordon Green. Unable to recover from losing the love of his life, Clara Massey (Natalie Wilemon), 20 years previously, small-town Texas locksmith Manglehorn still writes her daily letters. Living a reclusive life alone with his cat Fanny, Manglehorn takes refuge in his job while only occasionally meeting his grown-up son Jacob (Chris Messina) and granddaughter Kylie (Skylar Gasper), and shunning the advances of friendly bank teller Dawn (Holly Hunter). Will he ever be able to escape his solitary existence and learn to love something other than his cat?
Two boys end up on the run from their deadly uncle in this thriller.
Taking the Spin-off genre to the extreme, Angel attempts to replicate the success of Buffy by taking the heartthrob as the lead. Spin-off shows rarely match the success of their parent programmes, especially in the superhero/fantasy genre (cf. The Girl From UNCLE, The Bionic Woman, The Green Hornet--Frasier being the notable exception). Characters who were perfectly useful as supporting figures dwindle when forced in the spotlight, and Angel takes a special risk by building an entire series around a character who is: (a) supposed to be a mystery man; (b) a vampire who once spent half a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a dastardly villain who killed without remorse; and (c) played by David Boreanaz, who is well up on handsome and broody but still can't do an Irish accent to save his life and is visibly learning this acting lark as the series progresses. The premise is that Angel, the vampire with a soul, has finally admitted he'll never get it together with Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), unless a reunion crossover episode or two are scheduled. He moves to Los Angeles, a city haunted not only by demons and vampires but lawyers and agents. Angel sets up as a private investigator and solves cases with a supernatural aspect, partnered with Doyle (Glenn Quinn), a half-demon with a proper Irish accent and the useful psychic ability to know when someone is in trouble (thereby predicting any given week's plot), and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), another Buffy refugee here trying to reinvent herself as a struggling big-city single girl. Far less consistent than its parent show, but also not saddled with quite so much of a continuing story arc, Angel has a very different feel, cued by its effective semi-Goth violin theme tune and lots of film noir-ish LA street scenes, with a dose of cynical inside-the-entertainment-industry stuff. It has its share of familiar ideas (such as a Fight Club episode) and simply daft premises (a demon-centred show which allegorises the debate about female circumcision , for example). Angel alienated a lot of initial fans by killing off its most appealing regular a third of the way into the run, dusting off hideous English comic stereotype Wesley the Watcher (Alex Denisof) as a replacement. However, it also comes up with some ingenious moments: in a two-parter guest-starring sometime Buffy villainess Faith (Eliza Dushku), the show finally delivers something scary and emotionally powerful as Angel proves he can solve cases his ex-girlfriend can't. Meanwhile, the last couple of episodes--which beef up a satanic law firm as regular foes and resurrect a long-dead character as a major troublemaker for the future--go from promising to delivering. --Kim NewmanOn the DVD: the DVD set is only moderately generous with features, compared to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series DVDs. There are two episodes with commentaries--creators Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt discussing the series' genesis and "City Of ". Added to this Jane Espenson, the resident queen of farce, talks us through the haunted apartment episode "Rm w/a Vu". Also included are four featurettes--introductions to the characters of Angel and Cordelia, a series one overview and a discussion of the show's demons--scripts for the two Faith episodes, cast biographies and a gallery of stills and blue-prints. Most importantly, given the way Angel was butchered by Channel 4 for an inappropriately early time slot, the show's violence and strong language are offered uncut. Presented in English and French Dolby Surround Sound 2.0 and with an aspect ratio of approx 1.33:1 --Roz Kaveney
Role Models: As the world's least-likely mentors Danny (Paul Rudd) & Wheeler (Seann William Scott) must put aside their selfish sarcastic and party-driven ways in order to give two odd foul-mouthed kids invaluable wisdom about life love and heavy metal. Pineapple Express: Lazy stoner Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver (James Franco): to purchase weed specifically a rare new strain called Pineapple Express. But when Dale becomes the only witness to a murder by a crooked cop (Rosie Perez) and the city's most dangerous drug lord (Gary Cole) he panics and dumps his roach of Pineapple Express at the scene. But the weed is so rare that it can be traced back Saul. Dale and Saul have to run for their lives as the bad guys are hot on their trail! All aboard the Pineapple Express. Step Brothers: Ferrell plays Brennan Huff a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother Nancy (Mary Steenburgen). Reilly plays Dale Doback a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father Robert (Richard Jenkins). When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart these two middle-aged immature overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off they must form an unlikely bond that maybe just maybe will finally get them out of the house.
From the young director of 2000's critically acclaimed "George Washington" comes a love story set in a small country town in Southern America.
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