Amazon.co.uk Review
The Emperor's New Groove was originally developed as an epic called Kingdom of the Sun and lost scale and most of Sting's song score (some of which can be heard on the soundtrack) on its way to the screen. The end result is the lightest Disney film in many a moon, a joyous romp akin to Aladdin in its quotient of laughs for children and adults. The original story centres on the spoiled teenage emperor Kuzco (David Spade), who enjoys getting the best of his Aztecan subjects. When he fires Yzma (Eartha Kitt), his evil sorceress, she seeks revenge and turns Kuzco into a llama with the help of Kronk, her hunk of the month (Patrick Warburton). Alone in the jungle, the talking llama is befriended by Pacha (John Goodman), who has just been told to vacate his pastoral home by the human Kuzco. What's an ego to do? That's pretty much the story and the characters--simple, direct, fun--a Disney film on a diet. For any fan of the acidic humour of Spade, this is essential viewing. As narrator of his tale, Kuzco uses a sarcastic tone to keep the story jumping with plenty of fun asides (he even "stops" the film at one point to make sure you know the story is about him). Even better is character actor Warburton (Elaine's stuck-up boyfriend on Seinfeld), who steals every scene as the dim-witted, but oh-so-likable Kronk. There's even a delicious Tom Jones number that starts the film off with a bang. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk Review
On its original release in 1988, the pairing of Steve Martin and Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was seen as something of a dream ticket. Viewing the film many years later, that assessment still proves completely accurate: the casting is perfect. American Freddy Benson and Briton Lawrence Jamieson are con men who work the French Riviera--at first as colleagues, later as rivals--praying on rich, gullible women before finally meeting their match. Having spent the decade veering between popular rubbish and low-key quality, for once Caine was able to find a populist vehicle that did justice to his talents. Steve Martin is, well, very Steve Martin but there are few better suited to the visual comedy of his character. The film has an old-fashioned feel (no sex, violence or bad language) and owes much to the earlier period of film humour--it really doesn't take that much imagination to see this as an Ealing comedy. All round, it's a stylish, charming, witty film.
On the DVD: Extras are few, limited to scene selection, subtitles and the very funny trailer. Picture quality is superb, allowing the film's exotic setting to sparkle and there are many scenes of breathtaking beauty. Given that the film is full of fantastic comedy set pieces, the ability to select scenes is a real plus, allowing to the viewer to locate that classic Martin pratfall at the push of a button. --Phil Udell
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant twist for an ending.......2007-12-23
Everything clicks in this laugh-out-loud gem. Steve Martin and Michael Caine are in top form as Freddy Benson and Lawrence Jamieson, two con men who agree that this town (on the French Mediterranean coast) ain't big enough for the both of them. To solve the problem, they agree upon a solution - the first man to swindle $50,000 from a naive young woman gets to stay. The competition brings out the very best of their very worst, with Martin posing as a paraplegic and Caine as a psychiatrist eager to help convince him it's all in his head. Glenne Headly, as the target of the cons, deserves special mention for her brilliant performance.
One of the strongest assets of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" is that the story is interesting enough, with its various twists and turns, that it would work great even without being funny. The laughs - and there are many of them - are a sort of gut-hurting bonus. The scene in which Caine tests the nerves in Martin's legs must rank as one of the most uproarious in film history. This one from director Frank Oz (certainly no slouch in the comedy department) is not to be missed.
A Classic.......2007-07-29
When this movie was released, it was panned by the critics (so what do they know?)
It's just a great fun movie. Caine and Martin just "blend" together.
The film is one laugh after another. My two favourite scenes are Ruprecht's "May I use the bathroom?" and the one where Martin is superglued to the wall.
Buy and enjoy
Absolutely funny.......2004-02-20
The first time I watched this film I noticed there are many similarities between this film and a classical film "Bedtime Story" ,which performed by David Niven and Marlon Brando. However the play of Steve Martin and Michael Caine made the film very interesting . Although Steve Martin is well known for the films like "Jerk" and " A Man with Two Brains" this is my most favourite Steve Martin film.All characters in this comedy film are charlatans except a lovely lady but...
You can tell they had fun making this film!.......2003-08-21
One of the funniest films I have seen and one that I don't mind watching over and over. The script is great, acting and timing superb (especially by Michael Caine) and on site location just adds to the happy ambience of the film. You can tell they must have loved making this film, and that enjoyment is infectious.
What is also particularly interesting about this film is the juxtaposition of American and British humour. You find yourself laughing at both, its something we don't see enough of these days. Hopefully you'll see what I mean. If you have never seen this film, buy it, crack open a bottle of wine/ perefered beverage, take the phone off the hook and enjoy.
Low-brow, but still very good.......2002-02-19
This film has been one of my favourites since seeing it in the theatres as a spotty-faced fifteen year-old. Steve Martin's over-the-top antics do get a bit tiresome, especially towards the end of the duo's scam on America's "soap queen," but Michael Caine's suave but insecure gigolo is more than enough to carry Steve Martin when he starts to sag. After seeing Caine play a scoundrel and a hood in films like Alfie and The Italian Job, it's a testament to his acting talent to see him play something completely different. His comic timing is still impeccable, and he should be applauded for even being able to play a gigolo at his age. The scenes with Caine's pesky female suitors and Ruprecht are brilliant...I won't spoil them for you, but I don't know how either actor managed to ever get through filming them. I personally would have been rolling on the floor the entire time.
Amazon.co.uk Review
A 6 Disc collection of your favourite Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, containing the following six classic films:
Carousel; The King and I; Oklahoma!; The Sound of Music; South Pacific; State Fair;
Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.
Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom Keogh
The Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.
South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
State Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.
Amazon.co.uk Review
Carousel - Spectacular staging dots this widescreen deluxe Rodgers and Hammerstein musical as Gordon MacRae brings a blustery energy to the lead role of Billy Bigelow, a drifter and ne'er-do-well carnival 'barker'. The troubled soul finally settles down with a good woman (Shirley Jones) but then gets stabbed to death while committing a robbery. Many years later, an angel offers the roustabout the chance to return to earth for just one day to makes things right for his unhappy wife and the daughter he never had the chance to meet. Based on the French play "Lilion" by Ferene Molnar, Carousel ranks among the better Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, making it a classic by any standard. To boot, the film's tale of love between Bigelow and wife Julie rivals that of any other 1950s musical. Songs from the outstanding score include 'If I Loved You', 'June Is Busting Out All Over', and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'.
The King and I - In 1955 this lavish production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway hit "The King and I", starring Yul Brynner as the King of Siam and Deborah Kerr as the governess sent to look after his children, was the most expensive film ever mounted by 20th Century Fox. The 40 sets in ripe decors by Walter M Scott and Paul S Fox included a ballroom of black marble with jade and silk tapestries and a banqueting scene with a table that gives the impression of stretching to infinity. The costumes by Irene Sharaff, notably the hoop ballroom gown for Deborah Kerr and those for the ballet "The Small House of Uncle Thomas", dazzle the eye in their delineation of Western manners and Oriental splendour. Brynner remains impressive as the King but his pidgin dialogue, inherited from Hammerstein's book, with the dropping of the definite article takes some adjustment. Alfred Newman put his unique stamp on the music: the Overture offers an example of his luminous divided string sound, the climactic ballroom scene a full bodied orchestral reprise of "Shall We Dance?" as the camera pulls away to a high angle producing an exultant visual finish to this celebrated polka.
Oklahoma - The hit Broadway musical from the 1940s gets a lavish if not always exciting workout in this 1955 film version directed by old lion Fred Zinnemann (High Noon). Gordon MacRae brings his sterling voice to the role of cowboy Curly and Shirley Jones plays Laurie, the object of his affection. The Rodgers and Hammerstein score includes "The Surrey with the Fringe on Top", "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" and "People Will Say We're in Love", and Agnes DeMille provides the buoyant choreography. Among the supporting cast, Gloria Grahame is memorable as Ado Annie, the "girl who cain't say no", and Rod Steiger overdoes it as the villainous Jud. --Tom Keogh
The Sound of Music - The most widely seen movie produced by a Hollywood studio, The Sound of Music grows fresher with each viewing. Though it was planned meticulously in pre-production (save for the scene where Maria and the children take a dipping in an Austrian lake that nearly cost a life), on each viewing one is struck anew by the spontaneous almost improvisatory air of the acting, notably of Julie Andrews under Robert Wise's direction. There are also the little human touches he brings to, for instance, the scene where Maria leads the children to the hills, over bridges and along tow paths where the smallest boy trips up and momentarily gets left behind: it creates a feeling that most of us have encountered. From the opening pre-credit sequence of muted excitement as the camera roves over the Austrian Alps (photographed in magnificent colour), where little phrases from the wind instruments on the soundtrack are flung as if on the breeze, foreshadowing the title song to follow, the production never puts a foot wrong.
South Pacific - The dazzling Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, brought to lush life by the director of the original stage version, Joshua Logan. Set on a remote island during the Second World War, South Pacific tracks two parallel romances: one between a Navy nurse (Mitzi Gaynor) "as corny as Kansas in August" and a wealthy French plantation owner (Rossano Brazzi), the other between a young American officer (John Kerr) and a native girl (France Nuyen). The theme of interracial love was still daring in 1958, and so was director Logan's decision to overlay emotional moments with tinted filters--a technique that misfires as often as it hits. The comic relief tends to fall flat and an overly spunky Mitzi Gaynor is a poor substitute for the stage original's Mary Martin. But the location scenery on the Hawaiian island of Kauai is gorgeous and the songs are among the finest in the American musical catalogue: "Some Enchanted Evening", "Younger than Springtime", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair", "This Nearly Was Mine". That's Juanita Hall as the sly native trader Bloody Mary, singing the haunting tune that launched a thousand tiki bars, "Bali H'ai". The movie is based on stories from James Michener's book "Tales from the South Pacific". --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
State Fair - Good old-fashioned hometown pride is on display in lavish Technicolor in this remake of the 1933 film, the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the silver screen. When the Frake family travels to the fair, Ma and Pa (Charles Winninger and Fay Bainter) enter contests while daughter Margy (Jeanne Crain) and son Wayne (Dick Haymes) both fall in love for the first time. State Fair is attractively photographed and energised by the vibrant performances of the talented lead actors and actresses, but the high point of the film is the colourful hoopla and hullabaloo of the fair itself, a bustling nexus of strange, wonderful, and hilarious characters brought to life by the fine supporting cast. Songs from the Academy Award-nominated score include 'It's a Grand Night for Singing', 'That's For Me', and the Oscar-winning 'It Might As Well Be Spring'.
Customer Reviews:
DANCE, SING AND FEEL THE MUSIC.......2006-04-05
WOW! A classic boxset with so many extras, words fail me.
Every song on this set is perfect and shows what masters of song and dance Rogers and Hammerstein truly where.
Buy this and be englufed by the extras alone.
A perfect pressie for those musical children, let them see what true class is.
Amazon.co.uk Review
A terrific film noir full of skewed camera angles and mysterious whose-shoes-are-those shots, Kiss Me Deadly is about as dark and exciting as noir gets. A young woman (Cloris Leachman) in bare feet and a trench coat throws herself into the traffic to flag down help and the car she stops belongs to detective Mike Hammer. Not even 15 minutes into the film and there's already been a murder, a mysterious letter, an attempt to kill Hammer and, of course, a warning to stay out of it. Hammer, tired of lowlife divorce cases, smells something big and can't let it go.
Mike Hammer is a detective so cool he can win a fight with nothing more than a box of popcorn as a weapon; he knows his opera singers as well as his amateur prize-fighters and he makes the ladies swoon--but he's far from a conventional hero. In fact, he's emphatically not a nice guy; Hammer happily whores out his secretary-girlfriend Velma to cinch up those divorce cases and has a penchant for slamming other people's fingers in drawers. Even the bad guys know he's a sleazebag ("What's it worth to you to turn your considerable talents back to the gutter you crawled out of?"). Ralph Meeker plays Hammer's ambivalence brilliantly, swinging easily between sexy and just plain mean. --Ali Davis
Customer Reviews:
A fine low-budget thriller with great noir visual style. If only professional critics would stop talking about nuclear metaphors.......2007-09-25
When Nat Cole's smooth, melancholy delivery sends "Rather Have the Blues Than What I've Got" out of Mike Hammer's car radio late one night, we know nothing good is going to happen. Hammer has just picked up a desperate young woman named Christina who had been running down an isolated California two-lane rode.
"The room is dark and gloomy, you don't know what you're doing to me
The way it has got me caught, I'd rather have the blues than what I've got."
The lyrics might not be good, but Cloris Leachman's frightened urgency as Christina sets the movie on the fast track. It's not long before Hammer's car is forced off the road, he's beaten senseless, and wakes up on a bed listening to shrieks of pain as Christina, hanging from her wrists, is tortured to death in a vain attempt by someone to learn a secret. In the short time we knew Christina we'd come to like her. She knew people were after her. She tells Hammer to let her out at a bus stop while he drives on. "That bus stop will be coming up pretty soon," Hammer says to her, "and I don't even know your name." "You forget. I'm a loony from the laughing house," she tells him "All loonies are dangerous. Ever read poetry? No, of course you wouldn't. Christina Rossetti wrote love sonnets. I was named after her." "Christina?" Hammer says. "Yes, Mike. Get me to that bus stop and forget you ever saw me. If we don't make that bus stop..." "We will," Hammer tells her confidently. "...if we don't," she continues, "remember me."
Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is a private eye who specializes in divorce work. He has a suggestive, live-in secretary named Velda. He and Velda often set up honey traps for the poor-sap husbands, and a little side action involving blackmail brings in extra cash. Hammer is a hard head, has no respect for the law but seems to love dishing out vigilante justice. Beating thugs to within an inch of their lives gives him satisfaction. From the time he decides to do justice to the memory of Christina to the conclusion of the movie, Mike Hammer meets one person after another who he beats, slaps, crushes their hands and breaks their phonograph records as he tracks down the mysterious Mr. Big, a man determined to posses a leather box which stays warm...a box that you open only if you want to die.
Kiss Me Deadly is a good movie for two reasons. It has great noir style and is one of the best photographed noirs, by Ernest Laszlo, I've ever seen. It also is directed by William Aldrich with supremely confident craftsmanship. Aldrich gives us efficient story-telling with no dawdling. He keeps the plot moving with a deft combination of tension, violence, menace and some fine, off-center characterizations from the secondary actors. The movie has narrative rhythm.
It also has the curse laid on it of tedious analysis by popular culture enthusiasts and film critics who should know better. Says one critic, "Kiss Me Deadly is the definitive, apocalyptic, nihilistic, science-fiction film noir of all time." Oh, come on. Kiss Me Deadly is a very well-crafted low budget pulp mystery thriller. Because that warm thing in a box happens to be nuclear, and because the movie ends with a bang, too many people, in my view, have read all sorts of pretentious allegories into the film. These people lay on the analysis of Kiss Me Deadly as heavily as makeup on a street walker. In 1999, for goodness sake, Kiss Me Deadly was even deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. I prefer the amusing viewpoint of A. I. Bezzerides, who wrote the screenplay. Bezzerides denied any intent to make the movie a metaphor for the potential horrors of the Cold War. "I was having fun with it," he has said. "I wanted to make every scene, every character, interesting." That he did, including a clever clue using a phrase from Christina Rossetti's fine poem, "Remember." In fact, said Bezzerides of the script, "I wrote it fast because I had contempt for it. I tell you Spillane didn't like what I did with his book. I ran into him at a restaurant and, boy, he didn't like me".
Although the movie starts with some poor song lyrics, let's end with some good lyrics from Rossetti's Remember, written to her husband before she died. There're the key to Mike Hammer's puzzle...and the key was found in a beautiful corpse's stomach:
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
The DVD film transfer is in excellent shape. The only extra is the movie trailer. There is a Region 1 DVD that went out of print but which might still be tracked down. It includes the planned ending where the implication is that everyone blows up, as well as the release ending where almost everything blows up but which leaves Hammer and Velda surviving. I think the release version is much more effective that the nuclear downer version would have been.
A lot more to this than meets the eye..........2007-03-18
Over thirty years ago, long, long before Sky had tied up new releases and the quality back catalogue, a film fan could educate him or herself through the simple expedient of watching terrestrial tv. Most nights from about 11 pm BBC2 was showing classics of British, world or US cinema. That's how I first stumbled on "Kiss Me Deadly" - a bored teenager flicking through the very limited range of channels available. That turned out to be one of the most memorable film experiences of my life. Its been called the best film noir ever. Its fair to say that's probably wrong, but misses the point. As a late example (1955) it represents the apogee of film noir and to my mind you really can't begin to understand it until you understand the US in the fifties - affluent and expansive but paranoid and terrified. That's assuming (and this is apparently a matter of debate) that this unique film, and in particular its conclusion, came about in the way the film makers intended.
There's no real point in describing the plot - it's as unfathomable as most of the film noir genre - it's the style that counts. Then, three quarters of the way through, the film throws a real twist at you, leading inexorably to the final beachhouse scene. At that point, conventionality goes out of the window - along with the world and everything else...
Top spot-low budget........2006-12-13
Micky Spillane was not Doestoyevski, so you'd expect films of his detective fiction to be far from Oscar-winning works.
In this case,Ralph Meeker is perfect. As Mike Hammer, he is convincingly, by turns, slow on the uptake, brutal, brutalised, and unable to resist the notion the femme fatale, stunningly portrayed by Gaby Rogers, could just be innocent.
There's enough style and styialisation to stay with you and your remeberances of this film forever. Thankfully,it doesn't pad the film out, and never gets in the way of the action.
Robert Aldrich made some astonishly good films, and some good bad or indifferent that nobody understood. None of that need trouble you here-this is good v evil,black v white, but you won't cotton on to which is which until the very climax.
And that IS a climax!! I won't spoil it for you-it's just too intriguing a film not to own.
Brutal and the best Film Noir of them all.......2006-08-25
This film will stun you with how many immatations it has spawned. The stylised speech the scenes where the violence is just merely suggested now shown to you with popcorn dropping photography. i feel that to truly grasp the impact of this film you have to understand the times, the culture and the politics of the era then you will see why this film is considered the best film noir. I would recommend that you buy it or rent it , if you love the film noir genre and do not have this film you are missing a treat
a terrible beauty.......2005-12-16
A great artwork. Appears at first to be a piece of low budget exploitation, but the sharp dialogue, moral ambiguity and intriguing plot machinations rope you to something at once more strange and ironical and more bitterly poignant than any other noir. Amidst the harsh words and fisticuffs, Christina Rossetti's elegaic poem 'Remember Me' emerges like a jewel in a mud puddle as both plot element (clue and relic of a dead woman) and thematic marker, playing wittily off Hammer's hardbitten materialistic pragmatism to reveal his tragic lack of self awareness, his apparent strength denying him access to transcendence. From there he appears more and more befuddled and vulnerable, a kind of angry everyman bewildered by a modernity encapsulated in the sealed box of nuclear material he's pursuing. One of the film's great achievements is to treat this not as contemporary issue but terrible, murderous beauty. Characters who open the box experience it's awful heat and are greeted with a flash of intense light - ultimately providing the source material for the lethal car boot in Alex Cox's 'Repo Man' and the exploding beach house in David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'.
Amazon.co.uk Review
This is one of those Hollywood remakes of a European hit in which one can visualize a committee of studio executives sitting around and saying, "Okay, we know what made the original film unique and different and fun. How can we make that same movie and do exactly the opposite?" For-hire director John Badham (Saturday Night Fever) took La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson's undeniably sexy, original, and kitschy French film about a female assassin, and translated it into The Assassin, a calculating, mechanistic American thriller with no distinctive style. Bridget Fonda gamely plays the willowy street punk who becomes a high-society killer, but once that provocative irony is in place, the movie is pretty much a series of by-the-numbers action set pieces. Until, that is, Dermot Mulroney shows up as a love interest; but even that twist can't save this film. You're much better off with the original, subtitles and all. The DVD release has optional full-screen and widescreen presentations, production notes, theatrical trailer, optional French and Spanish soundtracks, and optional English, French, and Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
Bridget beats you to the punch.......2006-06-21
If you want a gritty film thats has a good storyline and fabulously acted parts then this is the one for you.
Bridget plays a ruffian, a drug abusing lowlife who has taken part in a chemist shop slaying whilst her gang was looking for drugs.
She is sentenced to death. They kill her by lethel injection.
Then she wakes up, she has been offered a second chance in life but there are rules, she must behave, obey the rules and follow orders. Gabriel Burne plays the agent that recruited her and its his job to see she flies right and gets with the programme, the main incentive being of course the fact that she is already legally dead, if they wanted to kill her now for misbehaving no one would know any different.
She has a talent for killing, use of weapons and escape, some of the extravagant things they have her do are amazing! Until she comes to realise one thing - she HAS changed and wants a second chance at life.
With a cameo role of 'the cleaner' being played by Harvey Keitel and other major stars this film, including the enchanting Nina Simone's vocals, this is a must see action film for all.
Bridget gets it on.
You will be impressed.
Not Nikita.......2005-01-11
I saw Nikita before I saw this movie. It, unlike most Hollywood re-makes, manages to capture the style and feel of the original. As a result it is still a movie to watch, especially if you don't want to watch the French original. There are insufficient extras to make it an easy choice between the two versions, so it comes down to a personal choice. I bought both the original and this version.
The Assassin is a great film........2003-10-31
The Assassin is one of my favourite films,I saw La Femme Nikita first and I much prefered the American remake, this was mainly because I felt the relationship between Maggie and Bob was developed much more in the remake than in the original,also I felt that Bridget Fonda's interpretation showed a girl with much more emotional depth than the actress in the original did. Although some parts of the film are not as interesting (namely Bridgets boyfriend) I feel this film is very engaging.
A good effort, but a hard act to follow.......2002-11-05
Although you can't deny that La Femme Nikita is a truly remarkable piece of cinema which allows you to see past the subtitles and enjoy the action, The Assassin does a good job in a tribute kind of way.
Unfortunately it will always be known as a remake of a classic original, but with Bridget Fonda and Gabriel Byrne you are guaranteed a fun popcorn movie.
I appreciated it anyway.
Amazing. Bridget Fonda's best film ever!.......2000-04-05
Bridget goes from junky to princess in the story of a girl recruited to kill anonymously. The idea is she does her job and is then terminated, but she gets away and tries to set-up a new life.
A must see for all conspiracy theory fans!
Amazon.co.uk Review
Disney's direct-to-video sequel to their 1995 hit places the Native American princess Pocahontas in harm's way in London, where she is almost tossed into jail and has some other mishaps. She's not alone, however: a cute racoon named Meeko does a nice job as the obligatory funny animal. The songs are about as memorable as those in the first film, but the art and animation maintain far higher standards than most animated sequels dumped onto tape. If you don't drive yourself nuts thinking about the appalling historical revisionism at work here, this is passable family entertainment. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.co.uk Review
Disney's direct-to-video sequel to their 1995 hit places Pocahontas in harm's way in London, where she is almost tossed into jail and has some other mishaps. She's not alone, however: a cute racoon named Meeko does a nice job as the obligatory funny animal. The songs are about as memorable as those in the first film, but the art and animation in Pocahontas 2 maintain far higher standards than most animated sequels dumped onto tape. If you don't drive yourself to distraction thinking about the appalling historical revisionism at work here, this is passable family entertainment. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING I HAVE EVER WITNESSED!.......2008-01-29
truly appalling! wer do i begin? firstly it slaughters the first movie which was fab and destroys the romance in it that was btwn john smith and pocahontas. secondly the story line was crap and that was because ther was no decent story line. so dissapointed that i cant watch the first one now coz i know they break up! ruined a classic. dont watch it seriously! spare yourself! heed my words!!
Poor characters, poor songs and poor relationships.......2007-05-14
I was deeply dissapionted with this film. I found the characters bland, and the songs quite dire, and in whole the film left much to be desired.
Nothing like the origional.
Pocahontas shines again, but not her new companion.......2006-01-19
Pocahontas finds a new path in her life, as she sails to England with her new companion John Rolph in a mission of peace. Once again, the animation and music are stunningly beautiful, the old characters especially Grandma Willow, Meeko, Percy and Flit add sparkles of humour to the film. The obnoxious, horrible Governor Radcliffe is also back with a vengence. He makes the perfect villain and you will be rooting for his downfall! Pocahontas is spectacular once again as the brave, spiritual heroine who is determined to make peace with the English King, James.
Personally, I was not entirely convinced by her new companion John Rolph. I didn't sense much passion between them, unlike when she was with John Smith in the first Pocahontas where you could really see them interacting spiritually and falling in love. John Rolph seemed to be a bit of a cold fish at times and he was a little arrogant to Pocahontas upon their first meeting. This is just my view however, others may see this differently. You'll have to watch and find out!
The only other downside was that the film only ran for approximately 65 minutes; it was a little bit short and there were no bonus features on the DVD other than multiple language selections.
pocohontas 2.......2005-01-23
I was very excited when i heard a pocohontas 2 was being brought out, however this video was not as brilliant as the first. However it is great for small children (between 5-10) The character pocohontas didnt seem to be as likeable as she was in the first video, but as i said more suitable to small children.
British version.......2005-01-01
This was one of three DVDs that I have seen on the portable DVD player displays at Gatwick North in August 2004 while waiting for my flight back to Dallas. This disc has seven languages (tell me if I'm missing some): English, of course, Portugal Portuguese, Czech, Hebrew, Russian, Icelandic, and I think Greek. Of all the audio languages on this disc, English, oddly enough, is the only subtitle option on this disc. Thinking "eeny-meeny-miny-moe, catch-a-tiger...etc.," my choice landed on Czech (all language options in the menu are in their native spellings, so what looked like "cvensky" meant "Czech" because of the "sky" in most of their words) and I used the English subtitles.
Also, great news for those who prefer their movies edited: this movie is cut by approximately 9 seconds! Big thanks to the British Censors for their continuation for editing movies on DVD, something we Americans hardly do!
Sadly, no bonus features, but all the languages might make up for the lack of extras!
Customer Reviews:
A Married Prince of Wales With A Mistress! Sound Familiar?.......2007-10-18
This 1978 Granada production tells the life story of the legendery actress and beauty, Lillie Langtry. The only girl in a family of 6 brothers, Lily was a tomboy who failed to hold men in awe as was expected in the 1800's society. Marriage to the dashing Edward Langtry (Anton Rodgers) proves a disappointment as his financial situation fails to live up to his boasts. Lily (BAFTA winner Francesca Annis) has her picture sketched by a friend of her Bohemium chum Oscar Wilde (Peter Egan) - and is unexpectedly launched as a P.B. - Professional Beauty - when her glorious red hair and creamy complexion become favourites with the public who like to buy postcards of the society women of the time.
As portrait painters line up to draw "The Jersey Lily", Lily comes to the noticed of Bertie, The Prince of Wales (Denis Lill). The scenes where Lily and her husband are gently guided into the Prince's society whilst she is vetted for her suitability for the mistress role are fascinating to see - the double standards of the time being breathtaking. When a journalist prints a story of Lily's friendship with the Prince he is sued for libel - and convicted - despite members of the all male jury being fully aware that Mrs Langtry is holidaying with the Prince at that very moment!
Turning to the stage, Lily proves a competent actress and is soon being feted in America where men fall over themselves for her charm and good looks. Now estranged from her husband, Lily longs for divorce, but the increasingly alchoholic Edward has no intention of giving up his "meal ticket".
Her affair with a foreign prince results in the birth of a child whom Lily gives to her parents to raise and refers to as her "niece". The possible scandal of having a child which is clearly not her husbands gives Edward Langtry a chance to obtain more financial benefit from his wife, but as his health deteriorates, so does the threat he poses for Lily.
With beau's by the score, a second ill-chosen marriage, a violent society lover and touching scenes with the now King Edward VII - and his remarkably understanding wife Alexandra - Lillie gives us a glimpse at a bygone age where double standards ruled the echelons of society and the affairs of a Monarch were approved of and regarded as his right. Indeed, history tells us that on his death bed the King was attended by his wife -and his favourite mistress, Lily Langtry.
The costumes are stunning, the attention to detail of the ball scenes, race course meetings, riding in the parks of London are faultless and this 1978 production is a must for fans of costume drama. Firm favourites such as Stephanie Cole and Annette Crosbie appear in the cast, but the leading roles are faultlessly played and Francesca Annis was a worthy winner of the Best Actress BAFTA for her glittering Lily Langtry.
Customer Reviews:
Extras Missing.......2008-01-10
I bought this as a gift for someone.
The extra disc is missing only on the US Version.
DO NOT buy this.
DONT GET THIS VERSION GET HTE US ONE >>READ
<
<.......2007-10-11
THE AMERICAN US 4 disc version RELEASE IS FAR SUPERIOR
AND IS >>NOT
<
< REGION LOCKED even though it says region 1
We got a bum deal in uk europe, the people who did this version were downright cheap and lazy
THE UK VERSION IS ONLY 3 DISCS, The US version is 4 with lots of extras including brilliant behind scenes footage
IF YOU HAVE WIDESCREEN TV. The UK dics are in 4:3 only. meaning black bars left and right. Lots of these shows were shot in widescreen and you wont be able to watch properly on your widescreen tv. THE US VERSION IS WIDESCREEN . It has double sided dics. On one side 4.3 version and the other side widescreen version.
And most unbelievable of all the UK VERSION DOES NOT HAVE CHAPTER SELECT OR SCENE SELECTION. When you put the disc in it just says play!! You might think so what? but when there is so much goodies crammed into these discs you will have to ffw to your favourites. THE US VERSION HAS CHAPTER SCENE SELECT WITH PICTURES.
GET THE US VERSION. IF you get the 4 disc version IT IS NOT REGION LOCKED even though says reigon 1.
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Animation
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Disney
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Children's DVD
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