Italian director Franco Zeffirelli stunned the world when he cast two young unknowns to portray the star crossed lovers in 'Romeo and Juliet' but it was a gamble that resulted in one of the most popular motion pictures of the time winning international acclaim and two Academy Awards. Shakespeare's classic romance comes to stunning visual life in a modern young person's interpretation bringing new vitality and a fresh insight to the most durable love story ever written.
A hot and steamy thriller in more ways than one! To Lieutenant Remy McSwain life in New Orleans is all about the 'Big Easy' until a series of gang killings spiral out of control. When a beautiful investigator Ann Osborne arrives from the D.A.'s police corruption task force Remy realises he is caught between truth and lies honour and corruption. Soon he finds himself jailed for attempting bribes and life is far from 'The Big Easy'.
Wilde could easily have been nothing more than another well-dressed literary film from the British costume drama stable, but thanks to a richly textured performance from Stephen Fry in the title role, it becomes something deeper--a moving study of how the conflict between individual desires and social expectations can ruin lives. Oscar Wilde's writing may be justifiably legendary for its sly, barbed wit, but Wilde the film is far from a comedy, even though Fry relishes delivering the great man's famous quips. It takes on tragic dimensions as soon as Wilde meets Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, the strikingly beautiful but viciously selfish young aristocrat who wins Oscar's heart but loses him his reputation, marriage and freedom. Fry is brilliant at capturing how the intensity of Wilde's love for Bosie threw him off balance, becoming an all-consuming force he was unable to resist. Jude Law expertly depicts both Bosie's allure and his spitefully destructive side, there are subtle supporting performances from Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle and Zoe Wanamaker, and the period trappings are lavishly trowelled on. But this is Fry's show all the way: from Oscar the darling of theatrical London to Wilde the prisoner broken on the wheel of Victorian moralism, he doesn't put a foot wrong. It feels like the role he was born to play. --Andy Medhurst
You wouldn't think that a movie, which mostly consists of two old guys talking could be a thriller, but that's exactly what L'Homme du Train is. French singer Johnny Hallyday plays a professional criminal who comes to a small town to take part in a robbery. By chance, he meets talkative Jean Rochefort, who invites the laconic Hallyday to stay at his house because the hotel is closed. The two form an unlikely friendship, each curious about (and envious of) the other's life. But all the while plans for the robbery continue, while Rochefort is preparing for a dangerous event of his own. The pitch-perfect performances make L'Homme du Train completely involving. Rochefort and Hallyday play off of each other beautifully; it's impossible to put your finger on what makes these subtle, supple scenes so magnetic. The whole is directed with spare authority by Patrice Leconte (La Veuve de Saint-Pierre). --Bret Fetzer
East Is East: George Khan, proud Pakistani and chip shop owner, rules his family with a rod of iron. He thinks he's raising his seven children to be respectable Pakistanis - but this is Salford in the North of England, in 1971. For the seven kids of George Khan life is one long compromise. Tomboy Meenah prefers playing footie to wearing a sari, hippie Saleem pretends to be studying engineering when he's really at art school, heart throb Tariq has got a reputation as a local ...
A skilled street dancer with a community service gig at an arts school draws the attention of an elite ballet dancer, and sparks fly both on and off stage.
They only met once but it changed their lives forever. Without doubt John Hughes' The Breakfast Club is one of the greatest teen movies of all-time if not the best. Without it we might not have witnessed the phenomenal rise of the 'brat pack'; the group of actors synonymous with the teen films of the '80s. They were five teenage students with nothing in common faced with spending a Saturday detention together in their High School library. At 7am they had nothing to say but by 4pm they had bared their souls to each other and become good friends. To the outside world they were simply the Jock the Brain the Criminal the Princess and the Kook but to each other they would always be the Breakfast Club. The film's title comes from the nickname invented by students and staff for detention at the school attended by the son of one of John Hughes' friends. Thus those who were sent to detention were designated members of The Breakfast Club.
The film tells three concurrent stories set in and around the US-Mexico drugs trade that gradually overlap and intertwine. Michael Douglas portrays the US latest drugs czar with an addict teenage daughter at home, Catherine Zeta Jones plays the unsuspe
Volume 1 of a collection of classic Marilyn Monroe movies including: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1956) Gentlemen may prefer blondes but this blonde bombshell prefers diamonds and lots of them! Glamorous showgirl Marilyn sets sail for France intent on marrying a rich yet boring beau. But anything can - and does - happen with the beautiful and fun-loving Jane Russell acting as chaperone. From celebrated director Howard Hawks this musical comedy classic features Marilyn's s
Journeyman boxer Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) thinks that he has one last good fight in him in order to get a payout and retire from the ring. His wife Julie (Audrey Trotter) pleads for him to quit whilst his manager Tiny (George Tobias) is so convinced that his man is going to lose that he has taken money from the mob in exchange for his man taking a ‘dive’. Unaware that his manager has double-crossed him and that he will be a target for the mob if he wins, Stoker strains every sinew of his raw courage to knock out his opponent. Director, Robert Wise, pulls no punches in this gritty drama whose boxing scenes are all the more realistic for Robert Ryan having been a college boxing champion. Hailed by many as one of the greatest films of the 1940’s, with its seventy-two minutes playing out in real time, The Set-Up is worthy of its BAFTA nomination.
Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's film of The Canterbury Tales was one of a trilogy from the early 1970s that, like its companions The Decameron and the Arabian Nights, was an international box-office hit playing for long runs in mainstream cinemas. All of them adapt a masterpiece of literature where man becomes the moral catalyst for his own destiny. Chaucer's ribald sense of humour was a natural outlet for Pasolini's own desire to throw caution to the wind on screen, causing controversy at the time by displaying all facets of the male and female body unadorned. (Although it all looks pretty tame now, the Italian authorities were a threatening presence to Pasolini at the time.) Produced by Alberto Grimaldi with a large budget, the location scenes were filmed in many historic sites in England, notably Wells Cathedral, its crypt, and the surrounding flatlands leading toward Glastonbury, captured in early spring by Tonino Delli Colli's cinematography. The cast with Italian and English actors dubbed into Italian with English subtitles is a mixed blessing. Hugh Griffith as Sir January is one Anglo-Saxon recognisable from his role as the lecherous squire in Tom Jones, and overacts like the rest of the cast. Pasolini himself appears briefly as Chaucer in a non-speaking role that one regrets he didn't enlarge for himself in this sprawling tableaux of pilgrim's tales (Ken Russell's excesses from the same period come to mind). The musical score, an adaptation by Ennio Morricone of some traditional indigenous melodies, prefigures the early music revival by a few years and provides a stimulating soundtrack. --Adrian Edwards
Based on Andrew Morton's bestselling book the film traces Diana's transformation from shy young girl to public icon and sophisticated princess whose fairy tale marriage to Prince Charles soon turned into a nightmare well hidden outside the walls of Buckingham Palace. Until the book and this film revealed Diana's side of the story: her marital troubles her loneliness inside the royal family her suicide attempts and her struggles with bulimia. With this critically acclaimed film the world reached a new understanding of this complex fascinating woman.
David Lynch's acclaimed tale of murder and amnesia in Los Angeles. Having narrowly survived a murder attempt and a car crash, a shocked and wounded woman (Laura Elena Harring) takes refuge in a nearby apartment. When she is discovered the next morning by the apartment's official resident, aspiring actress Betty Elms (Naomi Watts), she confesses that she neither knows who she is nor what happened to her. The two women then begin to investigate, and it gradually becomes clear that they have kno...
Danish historical drama written and directed by Martin Zandvliet. After Germany's surrender in May 1945 signals the end of World War II, a group of young German prisoners are handed over to Danish sergeant Carl Leopold Rasmussen (Roland Moller) to clear the Danish coastline of thousands of live landmines. Promising them that they will be free to return home once the job is done, Rasmussen quickly sends the boys out onto the beaches to begin their dangerous assignment. However, as the group's inexperience starts to show, Carl soon finds himself forming a strong bond with his young charges as they attempt to carry on with their daunting task.
1900s Vienna, a hot bed of philosophy, science and art, where a clash of cultures and ideas collide in the city's grand cafes and opera houses. Max Liebermann is a brilliant young English student of famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. When Max comes into contact with Oskar Rheinhardt, a Detective Inspector struggling with a strange case, he agrees to help him investigate a series of unusual and disturbing murders. Max's extraordinary skills of perception and forensics, and his deep understanding of human behavior and deviance, lead them to solve some of Vienna's most mysterious and deadly cases.
The Ãtztal Alps, more than 5,300 years ago. A Neolithic clan has settled nearby a creek. It is their leader Kelab s responsibility to be the keeper of the group's holy shrine Tineka. While Kelab is hunting, the settlement is attacked. The members of the tribe are brutally murdered, amongst them Kelab's wife and son, only one newborn survives... and Tineka is gone. Blinded by pain and fury, Kelab is out for one thing alone: vengeance. He sets out after the murderers on what turns into a grand odyssey where he must fight constantly for the infant s survival; against the immense forces of nature; against hunters he encounters; and, amongst the loneliness of the quest, against a growing sense of doubt over the morality of his mission. Inspired by the discovery of Ãtzi The Iceman , the oldest known human mummy, found in 1991 approximately 5,300 years after his death, ICEMAN is an epic, riveting, visually stunning and immersive revenge thriller that investigates a five-thousand-year-old murder mystery. NB: the characters in ICEMAN speak an early version of the Rhaetic language. The film intentionally has no subtitles as translation is not required to comprehend the story.
Starring a phenomenal ensemble cast led by Matt Damon and George Clooney and based on a true and untold story of World War II The Monuments Men is suspenseful ticking-clock adventure-thriller about a ragtag team of unlikely but charismatic heroes embarking on the greatest treasure hunt in history taking on the seemingly impossible high-stakes mission to rescue the world's greatest works of art which the Nazi's are hell-bent on destroying.
From legendary director/writer James L. Brooks comes a humorous and romantic look at the How Do You Know question. When everything she's ever known is suddenly taken from her Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) begins a fling with Matty (Owen Wilson) a major league baseball player and self-centred ladies man. Before their relationship takes off Lisa meets up with George (Paul Rudd) a straight-arrow businessman facing his own serious issues both with his father (Jack Nicholson) and the law. Just when everything seems to be falling apart they discover what it means to have something wonderful happen.
Jodie Foster won her first Oscar for her role in The Accused (1988), based on an actual incident. While out for a night of fun at a poolroom, before her character knows what's happening she finds that the men she's been flirting with have pinned her down for a gang rape. The story centres on the efforts of a district attorney (Kelly McGillis) to press her case, in spite of a wall of silence by the participants--and then to take the unusual step of going after the witnesses as accomplices. Foster is outstanding as a tough, blue-collar woman who persists in what seems like an unwinnable case, despite the prospect of character assassination for standing up for herself. --Marshall Fine
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