Elizabeth: The Golden Age may not have been bestowed with a similar shower of awards (nor quite as glowing critical reaction) as its predecessor. But dont be fooled: this is a terrific costume drama, and one that very much leaves you hoping for the hinted-at third installment. Once again starring Cate Blanchett in the title role, Elizabeth: The Golden Age sees events pick up with her very well established on the throne. Its a new set of problems and issues that present themselves, with the impending threat of the Spanish Armada, and the scheming Mary, Queen Of Scots (brilliantly played by the always-terrific Samantha Morton) foremost in her mind. That is, of course, apart from Sir Walter Raleigh, played by Clive Owen. Elizabeth: The Golden Age adds a potential romance for the virgin Queen, one that she struggles to come to terms with. And in the capable hands of returning director Shekhar Kapur, these many threads are woven together skillfully and a willingness to break the conventions of the period drama. The star attraction remains Blanchett again, of course, whose performance is just as striking and textured as it was nearly a decade before. Elizabeth: The Golden Age may have an impressive cast, but all of them must have known they were on a hiding to nothing going up against the majesty (in more than one sense) of Blanchett. Because while the film itself does have a problems, its still better than you may have been led to believe, and boasts a tour-de-force central performance that you simply wont see matched very often at all. --Jon Foster
An attractive and intelligent French woman has a guilty secret, one that she wants to keep from her husband: she's having a passionate affair with a layabout American.
Mildred Pierce:Joan Crawford delivers a critically acclaimed performance as Mildred Pierce a woman clawing her way to success to provide her daughter with everything she lacks. No sacrifice is too much - ending her middle class marriage climbing to the top of a male-dominated business world and marrying a man she doesn't love - but is murder a step too far? Grand Hotel:Oscar-winning drama with an all-star cast exploring the interwoven relationships of the residents of a plush Berlin hotel... Humoresque:Glamorous socialite Helen Wright (Joan Crawford) takes what she wants clothes alcohol men uses them up and tosses them aside. Then she meets brilliant young violinist Paul Boray (John Garfield). But this is one toy she can't break. Instead her love for Paul brings Helen to the breaking point. In this acclaimed and profound exploration of desire Crawford makes Helen a rich layered character torn between selfless love and selfish impulses. Garfield matches her as the driven genius. Possessed:She loves him when he goes away for months. She loves him when he refuses to marry her. But when callow David Sutton chooses to marry someone else Louise Howell's love for him takes a darker turn. Give her a gun and she'll love him to death. Joan Crawford reteams with producer Jerry Wald of her Academy Award winning 'Mildred Pierce' and claims a 1947 Best Actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of tempestuous mentally unstable Louise. The Damned Don't Cry:It's a man's world. And Ethel Whitehead learns there's only one way for a woman to survive in it: be as tempting as a cupcake and as tough as a 75-cent steak. In the first of three collaborations with director Vincent Sherman Joan Crawford brings hard-boiled glamour and simmering passion to the role of Ethel who moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster's mansion to high society one man at a time. Some of those men love her. Some use her. And one a high-rolling racketeer abuses her. When the racketeer murders his rival in Ethel's swanky living room she flees a sure murder rap right back to the poverty she thought she had escaped. And this time there may not be a man to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.
Adult siblings Baxter and Annie (Jason Bateman and Nicole Kidman), scarred from an unconventional upbringing, return to their family home. When their parents (Christopher Walken and Kathryn Hahn) - performance artists famous for elaborate public hoaxes - go missing under troubling circumstances, Baxter and Annie investigate. Unsure whether it's foul play or just another elaborate ruse, nothing can prepare them for what they discover. Based on the novel by Kevin Wilson.
In Werner Herzog's brilliant adaptation of Georg Buchner's 'Woyzeck' Klaus Kinski delivers a wild and stunning performance in a role only he could play. Franz Woyzeck (Kinski) is a hapless solider alone and powerless in society assaulted from all sides by forces he cannot control. Abused and tortured both physically and psychologically by commanding officers doctors and his unfaithful wife Marie (Eva Mattes Best Supporting Actress at Cannes) Woyzeck struggles to hold on to his
Booby Trap (1956/57) 72 mins Black & White Directed by Henry Cass this 1957 UK production was filmed at Nettlefold Studios in Walton. It tells the story of an absent minded professor (Tony Quinn) who invents a pen that will explode on the sound of bells, but being absent minded he leaves his invention in a taxi. It's found by Sammy (Harry Fowler) who happens to work for dodgy club owner Mr Hunter (Sydney Tafler). A fast-paced thriller with Sydney Tafler and Harry Fowler as a couple of less-than-perfect crooks and Patti Morgan - then well-known as the glamorous blonde hostess of TV dance programmes - in her only film role. Four Days (1951) 55 mins Black & White A melodrama adapted from a play by Monckton Hoffe, concerning the neglected wife of a financially embarrassed business man and her philanderings with one of her husband's employees. A businessman Francis (Hugh McDermott) is in trouble and flies to America to seek help whilst away his wife has an affair with playboy johnny (Peter Reynolds) on his return francis discovers the affair and is distraught. Attempted suicide forgery fights and blackmail all in four days!
Le Silence De La Mer - Jean-Pierre Melville's debut film - is an adaptation of the novella of the same title by celebrated French Resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller). Clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed it captured the spirit of the moment and quickly became a staple of the Resistance. Melville's cinematic adaptation - partly shot in Vercors' own house - tells the story of a German officer Werner von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon) who is billeted to the house of an elderly man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (Nicole Stphane) in occupied France. Resisting the intruder the uncle and niece refuse to speak to the German officer who warms himself by the fire each evening espousing idealistic views about the relationship between France and Germany. These propagandised illusions are shattered however when a trip to Paris reveals the truth of what is really going on. One of the most important French films to deal with World War II and a landmark in Melville's distinguished oeuvre Le Silence de la mer is a lyrical timeless depiction of the experiences and struggles of occupation and resistance. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Melville's debut film for the first time on home video or DVD in the UK.
It earned Oscar nods, yet this cinematic look at a genius--that of English cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who enraptured audiences with her bold, emblazoned and wholly unconventional playing style, and who died at age 42--was criticised for its "lapses" in truth by people who purportedly knew du Pré. Some of the controversy revolved around the other main character in Anand Tucker's gorgeous, involving movie--du Pré's sister, Hilary, whose book,A Genius in the Family (cowritten with brother Piers), dished some dirt on Jackie's sleeping with Hilary's husband. But don't let that deter you from this ebullient movie experience. Hilary and Jackie is a bisected story (each sister's tale is told in the same amount of screen time) teeming with heartfelt drama that belies the cheap shots it received from its detractors. It's stirring, reckless, loving, involving, and rife with unconventional passion; passion for music, life, art, and the delicate relationship between these two synchronous, extraordinary sisters as played by brilliant actors Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths (both of whom earned Oscar nods). Though Watson got the juicy, showy role as Jackie, it's Griffiths who provides the heart, soul, and spine of the film. And director Tucker has that gift of being able to explain through the visual medium what is happening inside of his character's heads. He's helped by a fine screenplay by Frank Boyce Cottrell. No matter what the truth of Hilary and Jackie might really be, this is an exceptional, rare film that is defined and graced by fine acting and writing. --Paula Nechak
All systems are ""Go"" for Charles Farmer. He's faced bank foreclosure neighborhood naysayers and a government alarmed by his huge purchase of high-grade fuel but now he's ready to blast into space inside the homemade rocket he built in his barn. Just be home in time for dinner Charlie. Billy Bob Thornton portrays Charlie in this charmer about chasing dreams...and about what it means to be a family. 10 000 pounds of rocket fuel alone can't lift Charlie into the heavens. He needs a launch/recovery crew and he has one of the best: his wife (Virginia Madsen) and children dreamers all. They have liftoff. Our spirits have uplift. Gravity cannot hold down our dreams. The Astronaut Farmer is that kind of movie.
After winning the lottery Bill Regan is killed. His best friend Nora investigates his last few hours prior to his murder only to discover both the motive and the missing lottery ticket.
One of Britain's most versatile musical artists and a Broadway veteran by the end of the 1920s, in 1935 Gertrude Lawrence starred opposite Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. in this film dramatisation of La Bohème, one of Puccini's best-loved operas. Mimi is featured here in a brand-new transfer from the original film elements, in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. Mimi, the mistress of a successful middle-aged actor who takes himself too seriously, leaves him to throw in her lot with Rodolphe, a young dramatist, and his equally gifted but equally graceless, procrastinating and penniless companions. She inspires them to produce the works of art which they were previously too lazy to create; but Rodolphe's triumph is the ultimate cause of her own destruction... SPECIAL FEATURES: Image Gallery Original Memorabilia and Script PDFs
Scum: Alan Clarke's Scum shows a vicious system and doesn't pull any of the punches - or kicks - so relentlessly deployed in the battles between rivals in the power stakes that incarceration promotes. It's the brutal story of life in a modern-day Borstal. Run by the violence and cruelty of both inmates and officers the system is a jungle which brutalizes all within its walls. Carlin who has been transferred from another Borstal for retaliation against violent officers is thrown into this human quagmire - and what follows is a harsh and bitter battle for survival. He realises that the only way is by beating the system at its own game and eventually erupts as leader of a bloody climatic riot. Last Orders: This adaptation of Graham Swift's 1996 Booker Prize winning novel Last Orders by writer/director Fred Schepisi is an affecting movie about death friendship and booze starring a first rate cast of British actors. Jack Dodds (Michael Caine) was a regular guy so why the strange last order to have his ashes thrown off the pier at Margate? And why did his wife Amy (Helen Mirren) refuse to do it? As their Mercedes speeds towards the sea an emotional mystery unfolds where the men try to understand Jack's death by reliving their life through him... the war the children the good times and the bad. The journey becomes a pub crawl full of drink-ups and punch-ups and the men discover that through it all it's your friends who break your heart and... and your friends who mend it. Births Marriages And Deaths: Alan Graham and Terry have been best mates since primary school. Now pushing forty the three friends are still inseparable. Naturally Alan and Graham are going to give Terry a stag night to remember. A big fry-up breakfast bubbly down the dogs for a flutter ten-pin bowling... fantastic. But when the boys pay a late night revenge visit to their despised former headmaster things begin to go disastrously wrong. A tragic accident sets off an unforeseen chain of events revealing terrible secrets. Life will never be the same again.
Stephanie Beacham Stephanie Cole Louise Jameson and Jean Anderson star as inmates of a gruelling Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during the second world war. It is 1941 and the terrors of war torn Europe seem a long way away for the small expatriate community living in Singapore. But their privileged lives are soon to be shattered when the Japanese Army launches a devastating surprise attack. This is the powerful story of women who are thrown together by the chaos of war. Fearing f
Aaron Sorkin's American political drama The West Wing, set in The White House, has won innumerable awards--and rightly so. Its depiction of a well-meaning Democrat administration has warmed the hearts of countless Americans. However, The West Wing is more than mere feel-good viewing for sentimental patriots. It is among the best-written, sharpest, funny and moving of recent American TV series. In its first series, The West Wing established the cast of characters who comprise the White House staff. There's Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer), a recovering alcoholic whose efforts to be the cornerstone of the administration contribute to the break up of his marriage. CJ (Alison Janney) is the formidable press spokeswoman embroiled in a tentative on-off relationship with Timothy Busfield's reporter. Brilliant but grumpy communications deputy Toby Ziegler, Rob Lowe's brilliant but faintly nerdy Sam Seaborn and brilliant but smart-alecky Josh Lynam make up the rest of the inner circle. Initially, the series' creators had intended to keep the President off-screen. Wisely, however, they went with Martin Sheen's Jed Bartlet, whose eccentric volatility, caution, humour and strength in a crisis make for such an impressively plausible fictional President that polls once expressed a preference for Bartlet over the genuine incumbent. Handled incorrectly, The West Wing could have been turgid, didactic propaganda for The American Way. However, the writers are careful to show that, decent as this administration is, its achievements, though hard-won, are minimal. Moreover, the brisk, staccato-like, almost musical exchanges of dialogue, between Josh and his PA Donna, for instance, as they pace purposefully up and down the corridors are the show's abiding joy. --David Stubbs
Ernest Hemingway's tragic wartime romance comes to vivid life in this classic 1932 film starring Oscar winners Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. The cataclysm of WW1 sets the stage for an impassioned story of star-crossed love between a daring American ambulance driver (Cooper) and an English nurse (Hayes) in an army hospital. The tumult of war conspires to push the pair together and then wrench them apart in what becomes an ultimate test of love. Boasting beautiful cinematogrpahy and poe
White Lightnin': The Jesco White Murders
Award winning comedy about three young couples in the North of England who face very modern crises. Adam's life has descended into bachelor squalor. Desperate to get back on track he begins dating again. Jenny and Pete's marital problems have just taken a turn for the worse. Karen is shocked by David who wants to forget executive stress and become a house husband. Meanwhile Pete spots Rachel in the supermarket with a baby of unknown identity and gives chase armed with a camera...
Confessions of a Sex Maniac Comedy legend Roger Lloyd Pack (“Trigger” BBC1’s Only Fools and Horses and The Vicar of Dibley) plays Henry, an up ‘n’ coming architect tasked with designing a new leisure centre. Assisted by his sexy, super-efficient secretary Hilary (Vicki Hodge), Henry hits upon the idea of modelling the building on the shape of a humungous breast! In his quest for the perfect boob he road-tests a bevy of beautiful birds, including 70s’ sex-bombs Cherri Gilham, Ava Cadell and Monika Ringwald. Love Variations Britain’s first ever feature-length sex education film caused widespread tabloid controversy upon its original release. Now more hysterical than educational, the ground-breaking Love Variations shows models performing a variety of sexual positions, whilst a ‘family doctor’ provides an excitable commentary.
Eight years after the controversial and shocking Irreversible, director Gaspar Noé cemented his reputation as the enfant terrible of New French Extremity with perhaps his most challenging film to date a hallucinatory meditation on life, death and rebirth, shot entirely in the first person. American siblings Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) and Linda (Paz de la Huerta, The Limits of Control) eke out a shared existence in Tokyo he by dealing drugs, she by working as a stripper. However, tragedy strikes when a deal turns sour and Oscar is shot by the police. As his lifeless body lies on the floor of a public toilet, his soul floats high above the neon-drenched Tokyo streets, observing the effect of his death on his sister and reliving the events in his life that brought him to this juncture. Described by Noé himself as a psychedelic melodrama, Enter the Void boasts mesmerising cinematography by the award-winning Benoît Debie (Climax, Spring Breakers) and a hypnotic soundtrack of experimental and electronic music. Powerful and transcendent, it offers viewers an immersive cinematic experience like no other. Product Features High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of both the 143-minute UK theatrical cut and the full-length 161-minute director's cut Original lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Enter the Sensorium, a brand new visual essay on the film by author and critic Alexandra Heller-Nicolas Brand new video interview with typography designer and long-term Noé collaborator Tom Kan 8 deleted scenes Archival Making of Special Effects featurette Archival Vortex featurette Archival DMT Loop featurette French and international theatrical trailers 8 teaser trailers 3 unused trailers Image gallery Limited edition packaging with reversible sleeve featuring two choices of artwork Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Jon Towlson and Rich Johnson, and an oral history of the film by Steven Hanley Fold-out double-sided poster featuring two choices of artwork Six double-sided, postcard-sized artcards
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