Creation [Blu-Ray]
- UK Import
- Region-Free
- Blu-ray
Stills from Creation (Click for larger image)
Stills from Creation (Click for larger image)
For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie CoulterTumble down the rabbit hole with Alice for a fantastical new adventure from Walt Disney Pictures and Tim Burton. Inviting and magical, Alice In Wonderland is an imaginative new twist on one of the most beloved stories of all time. Alice (Mia Wasikowska), now 19 years old, returns to the whimsical world she first entered as a chil! d and embarks on a journey to discover her true destiny. This ! Wonderla nd is a world beyond your imagination and unlike anything you ve seen before. The extraordinary characters you ve loved come to life richer and more colorful than ever. There s the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), the White Queen (Anne Hathaway), the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter), the White Rabbit (Michael Sheen) and more. A triumphant cinematic experience Alice In Wonderland is an incredible feast for your eyes, ears and heart that will captivate audiences of all sizes.Tim Burton was born to bring Alice in Wonderland to the big screen. Ironically, his version of the Victorian text plays more like The Wizard of Oz than a Lewis Carroll adaptation. On the day of her engagement party, the 19-year-old Alice (a nicely understated Mia Wasikowska) is lead by a white-gloved rabbit to an alternate reality that looks strangely familiar--she's been dreaming about it since she was 6 years old. Stranded in a hall of doors, she sips from a potion that makes her shrink and nibble! s on a cake that makes her grow. Once she gets the balance right, she walks through the door that leads her to Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Matt Lucas), the Dormouse (Barbara Windsor), the Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and the Cheshire Cat (a delightful Stephen Fry), who inform her that only she can free them from the wrath of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter channeling Bette Davis) by slaying the Jabberwocky. To pull off the feat, she teams up with the Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp in glam-rock garb), rebel bloodhound Bayard (Timothy Spall), and Red's sweet sister, the White Queen (Anne Hathaway in goth-rock makeup). While Red welcomes Alice with open arms, she plans an execution for the hat-maker when he displeases her ("Off with his head!"). Drawing from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Burton creates a candy-colored action-adventure tale with a feminist twist. If it drags towards the end, his 3-D extravaganza still offers a tri! ppy good time with a poignant aftertaste. --Kathleen C. Fen! nessy
Stills from Alice in Wonderland
East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the children milk the cultural differences for every laugh they can. Yet the film ta! kes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he metamorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny BrownA young Japanese seaman jumps ship off the coast of Georgia and washes ashore on a barrier island inhabited by a strange mix of rednecks, descendents of slaves, genteel retired people, and a colony of artists. The result is a sexy, savagely hilarious tragicomedy of thwarted expectations, mistaken identity, love, jealousy and betrayal. "An absolutely stunning work, full of brilliant cross-cultural insights."--The New York Times Book Review.Manchester in 1971 is not the id! eal time and place to raise a proper Pakistani family. But Geo! rge Khan (Om Puri), father of seven unruly moppets and husband to a willful British wife (Linda Bassett), is determined to wield his influence over his clan. But what a clan this is, with Nazir (Ian Aspinall), who refuses his arranged wife; Saleem (Chris Bisson) who creates--shall we say controversial?--works of art; Tariq (Jimi Mistry), the mod boy who lives for discos and English girls; Meenah (Archie Panjabi), the only girl and tomboy extraordinaire; and Sajid (Jordan Routledge), who lives in a dirty fur-trimmed parka. Abdul (Raji James) and Maneer (Emil Marwa) stay more quietly in the background, although they lend their voices to the chorus of dissent against traditional ways.
East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the! children milk the cultural differences for every laugh they can. Yet the film takes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he metamorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny BrownManchester in 1971 is not the ideal time and place to raise a proper Pakistani family. But George Khan (Om Puri), father of seven unruly moppets and husband to a willful British wife (Linda Bassett), is determined to wield his influence over his clan. But what a clan this is, with Nazir (Ian Aspinall), who refuses his arranged wife; Saleem (Chris Bisson) who creates--shall we say controversi! al?--works of art; Tariq (Jimi Mistry), the mod boy who lives ! for disc os and English girls; Meenah (Archie Panjabi), the only girl and tomboy extraordinaire; and Sajid (Jordan Routledge), who lives in a dirty fur-trimmed parka. Abdul (Raji James) and Maneer (Emil Marwa) stay more quietly in the background, although they lend their voices to the chorus of dissent against traditional ways.
East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the children milk the cultural differences for every laugh they can. Yet the film takes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he met! amorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny BrownRe-issue of this intensely likeable best-selling comedy to coincide with extensive nationwide tour from Sept 05 to April 06. In Salford 1970: the Khan children, caught between bell-bottoms and arranged marriages, are buffeted this way and that by their Pakistani father's insistence on tradition, their English mother's laissez-faire and their own wish to be citizens of the modern world. Successfully filmed, after a rags-to-riches stage career that began in Birmingham in 1996, went on to a London premiere at the Royal Court, and culminated in the West End, "East is East" is a firm favourite with schools and theatres alike. It is one of NHB's top ten best-selling plays.Manchester in 1971 is not the ideal time and place to raise a proper Pakistani fa! mily. But George Khan (Om Puri), father of seven unruly moppet! s and hu sband to a willful British wife (Linda Bassett), is determined to wield his influence over his clan. But what a clan this is, with Nazir (Ian Aspinall), who refuses his arranged wife; Saleem (Chris Bisson) who creates--shall we say controversial?--works of art; Tariq (Jimi Mistry), the mod boy who lives for discos and English girls; Meenah (Archie Panjabi), the only girl and tomboy extraordinaire; and Sajid (Jordan Routledge), who lives in a dirty fur-trimmed parka. Abdul (Raji James) and Maneer (Emil Marwa) stay more quietly in the background, although they lend their voices to the chorus of dissent against traditional ways.
East Is East is Damien O'Donnell's directorial debut, and he nails the raucous tone from the opening scene, a church parade where the Pakistani children must do some deft maneuvering to avoid being seen by their Muslim father. At times such as these, the film is a straightforward comedy, and the children milk the cultural differences for every! laugh they can. Yet the film takes a more somber turn when Saleem balks at his father's insistence on arranging Saleem's marriage. Puri is magnificent straddling the line between lovable father and brute enemy as he demands that the others obey his will, and his performance can be difficult to watch as he metamorphoses. Sympathies toward the characters shift throughout the film, highlighting the superb acting of the entire cast. Ultimately, though, humor wins out, making East Is East a tremendously fun film. --Jenny BrownAsia the Invincible, the demon who metamorphosized into a woman in Swordsman II, was thought dead at the end of the previous adventure. Navy Official Koo discovers her in her old hideout, and tells her that many have been assuming her name and forming cults. Knowing this division will destroy the country, she vows to destroy them all. She finds that her former lover, Snow, is also one of the imposters. What begins as a patriotic endeavor s! oon becomes a bloodbath as her destructive nature consumes her! . Unable to control her fury, she unleashes her powers on Snow and Koo. In her final battle with Koo, she kills him as well as Snow. Once again, she retires from the world.
Stills from The Bridge on the River Kwai (click for larger image)
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Beyond The Bridge on the River Kwai
| The David Lean Collection | WWII 60th Anniversary Collection | The True Story of the Bridge on the River Kwai (History Channel) |
The story centers on a Japanese prison camp isolated deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia, where the remorseless Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) has been charged with building a vitally important railway bridge. His clash of wills with a British prisoner, the charismatic Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), escalates into a duel of honor, Nicholson defying his captor's demands to win concessions for his troops. How the two officers reach a compromise, and Nicholson becomes obsessed with building that bridge, provides the story's thematic spine; the parallel movement of a team of commandos dispatched to stop the project, led by a British major (Jack Hawkins) and guided by an American escapee (William Holden), supplies the story's suspense and forward momentum.
Shot on location in Sri Lanka, Kwai moves with a careful, even deliberate pace that survivo! rs of latter-day, high-concept blockbusters might find lulling! --Lean d oesn't pander to attention deficit disorders with an explosion every 15 minutes. Instead, he guides us toward the intersection of the two plots, accruing remarkable character details through extraordinary performances. Hayakawa's cruel camp commander is gradually revealed as a victim of his own sense of honor, Holden's callow opportunist proves heroic without softening his nihilistic edge, and Guinness (who won a Best Actor Oscar, one of the production's seven wins) disappears as only he can into Nicholson's brittle, duty-driven, delusional psychosis. His final glimpse of self-knowledge remains an astonishing moment--story, character, and image coalescing with explosive impact.
Like Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, The Bridge on the River Kwai has been beautifully restored and released in a highly recommended widescreen version that preserves its original aspect ratio. --Sam SutherlandLed in great part by Mitch Miller's recording of "The River Kwai March/Co! lonel Bogey March," this soundtrack became part of the mass-consciousness of the 1950s and following decades. The infectious and defiant whistling of the British prisoners of war is only one aspect of the film, though, standing alongside a score by Malcolm Arnold that (although winning an Academy Award) became overshadowed by Miller's commercial success. Often wading in folly as much as doom, Arnold views the adversities and will of the POWs in a way akin to Mickey's battle with the brooms in Fantasia. "Shear's Escape" floats in the life-and-death realism of the situation yet seems to find the playfulness and romantic abandon of a walk through a forest. "Overture," in its simultaneously laborious and stirring tones, prefers the stark representation of menace and captivity, orchestral sections battling one another as they search for a means of escape yet, in the end, find they must submit. And standing among it all is K. Alford's "Colonel Bogey March," the whistling ! tribute to another Disney film score that has always seemed to! allevia te even the worst days of drudgery at a cruel job. --James StockstillMovieGoods has Amazon's largest selection of movie and TV show memorabilia, including posters, film cells and more: tens of thousands of items to choose from. We also offer a full selection of framed and laminated posters. Customer satisfaction is always guaranteed when you buy from MovieGoods on Amazon.