Ray Winkler (Woody Allen) is an ex-con with big dreams and an inability to hold down dishwashing jobs. His wife, Frenchy (Tracey Ullman), is a sardonic manicurist who reins Ray in, attempting to keep him grounded in reality. So when Ray comes to Frenchy with a half-baked plan to rob a bank, she's dead set against it: no way is she giving up their life savings so he can work with three dimwitted guys in a harebrained scheme. Yet Ray, with his neurotic charm, wins her over and even convinces her to run the front for their operation: a cookie store. Soon enough, their get-rich-quick scheme to rob a bank leaves them rolling in dough-but not the kind they had in mind.
What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930's and 40's and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and bluetooth technology have in common? They are both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for 'Snow White' and 'Catwoman' and a technological trailblazer who perfected a radio system to throw Nazi torpedoes off course during WWII. Weaving interviews and clips with never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life - from her beginnings as an Austrian-Jewish emigre to her scandalous nude scene in the 1933 film 'Ecstasy' to her glittering Hollywood life to her ground-breaking, but completely uncredited inventions - 'Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story' brings to light the story of an unusual and accomplished woman, spurned as too beautiful to be smart, but a role model to this day.
Voted the greatest documentary of all time in the 2014 'Sight and Sound' poll, Vertov's groundbreaking 'Man with a Movie Camera' uses an array of dazzling cinematic techniques to record the people of the city at work and at play, and the machines that keep the city going. Presented with Michael Nyman's celebrated score, this classic film is accompanied by an exciting selection of new extras, including Vertov's 'Three Songs of Lenin' and two of his radical mid-1920s documentary films, both of which feature equally radical new soundtracks by electronic experimentalists Mordant Music.
Michael Palin travels the world in the footsteps of the great adventurer and writer. One hundred years after the birth of Ernest Hemingway, Palin follows his footsteps through the streets of Paris and lagoons of Venice to the snows of Kilimanjaro and bustle of Chicago. Evading bulls in Pamplona and pursuing marlin in Havana, his energetic attempts to match Hemingway's adventures don't always go to plan, but we do get to witness a journey brimful of humour and excitement
In the early 1930s, Soviet propaganda films profoundly influenced the emerging luminaries of the British documentary film movement, shaping their ideas about film as an art form. In this specially curated edition, Viktor Turin's 1929 classic about the building of the Turkestan-Siberian railway, 'Turksib', is presented alongside a number of key British documentaries - including the celebrated 'Night Mail' - all of which were made in the wake of 'Turksib' by filmmakers whose debt to the film is very much in evidence.
Founded in 1929, British Movietone was the first sound newsreel service in Britain, shooting on 35 mm film. Hungry for news from the various war fronts during World War II, people flocked to cinemas to see as many news reports as they could. Despite a shortage in film supplies, British Movietone News covered the home front and all the theatres of war: from the Western Front and Occupied Paris, to Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. For the very first time, many of these new reels have been remastered and brought together for this special Collector's Edition - some unseen since the war. Sometimes heroic, sometimes sad, and sometimes hilarious; this collection is a testament of British spirit and humour that will delight both those who lived through the war and younger generations learning about this major event in British history. -
When Alice Guy-Blache completed her first film in 1896 Paris, she was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors ever to make a narrative film. In 'Be Natural', Pamela B. Green acts as a detective, revealing the real story of Alice Guy-Blache and highlighting her pioneering contributions to the birth of cinema and her acclaim as a creative force and entrepreneur in the earliest years of movie-making.
Take a hilarious ride with the Hoovers, one of the most endearingly fractured families in comedy history. Father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is desperately trying to sell his motivational success programme... with no success. Meanwhile, "pro-honesty" mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) lends support to her eccentric family, including her depressed brother (Steve Carell), fresh out of the hospital after being jilted by his lover. Then there are the younger Hoovers - the seven-year-old, would-be beauty queen Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Dwayne (Paul Dano), a Nietzsche-reading teen who has taken a vow of silence. Topping off the family is the foul-mouthed grandfather (Alan Arkin), whose outrageous behaviour recently got him evicted from his retirement home. When Olive is invited to compete in the "Little Miss Sunshine" pageant in fat-off California, the family piles into their rusted-out VW bus to rally behind her - with riotously funny results.
Her story is well-known - the lonely child who yearned for affection and approval which she finally seemed to find as Hollywood's greatest love goddess. But even though she scaled heights few could even dream of, she was one of the loneliest of stars. And yet, in spite of the breakdowns, the failed marriages, the sordid rumors surrounding her life - and her death, Marilyn Monroe was never just a "victim". She was unique, a phenomenon that is as vital today as it ever was. She was all that is blazingly magical in a star. Here is the "real" Marilyn, drawn from some of her greatest moments on film - 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', 'How to Marry a Millionaire', 'The Seven Year Itch', 'Some Like It Hot', 'Bus Stop', 'The Misfits' - and more. Here too are the earliest films, the home movies, archival footage, and the memories of those who knew her best, like Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Sheree North, Susan Strasberg, Don Murray, Celeste Holm and Josh Logan. Narrated by Richard Widmark.
Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) is a fussy angel. Crowley (David Tennant) is a loose-living demon. They've both been on Earth for over 6,000 years. During that time they've grown quite fond of it, and, against all odds, each other. But there's a problem - the Antichrist has arrived here on Earth, which means the world they have become too fond of will end in flames, if they don't manage to save it. This wildly imaginative and gloriously funny drama follows Aziraphale and Crowley as they join forces in an attempt to find an 11-year-old Antichrist (and his dog) and avert the Apocalypse. Armageddon is coming - but it doesn't have to be the end of the world.
Armchair Theatre Archive: Vol.3 (1966)The Bird, The Bear and the Actress (1959) / The Fishing Match (1962) / The Man Who Came to Die (1965) / Dead Silence (1966)
Pioneering, immensely influential and often challenging, 'Armchair Theatre' was ITV's flagship drama anthology series. Bringing high-quality drama to the viewing public, the series easily demonstrated the network's potential to rival the BBC's drama output, with diverse and powerful plays showcasing some of Britain's most gifted writers. This release comprises four plays featuring performances by some of the era's most celebrated and accomplished actors including Harry H. Corbett, Lee Montague, Kenneth Griffith, Derek Jacobi, Yootha Joyce, Reginald Marsh, Patrick Allen and Ronald Lacey.
Featured Plays:
- The Bird, the Bear and the Actress (1959)
- The Fishing Match (1962)
- The Man Who Came to Die (1965)
- Dead Silence (1966)
In 1934, four brilliant, but seemingly conventional young men at Cambridge University are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union. Fuelled by youthful idealism, a passion for communism, a talent for lying and a hatred of Hitler and fascism, they began a 20-year career of deceit and treachery.
Pioneering, immensely influential and often challenging, 'Armchair Theatre' was ITV's flagship drama anthology series. Bringing high-quality drama to the viewing public, the series easily demonstrated the network's potential to rival the BBC's drama output, with diverse and powerful plays showcasing some of Britain's most gifted writers. This release comprises four plays featuring performances by some of the era's most celebrated and accomplished actors including Rupert Davies, Roger Livesey, Constance Cummings, John Stride, Leslie Phillips, Caroline Mortimer and Denis Quilley.
Featured Plays:
- The Thought of Tomorrow (1959)
- Toff and Fingers (1960)
- Late Summer (1963)
- The Gong Game (1965)
An illuminating tribute to Jack Kerouac, king of the Beat Generation and author of 'On the Road', a cultural icon whose influence is felt around the world. The words come from Kerouac himself, as well as fellow Beat writers, his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend, his daughter, his priest, and the incredible footage of Kerouac on the Steve Allen (1959) and William Buckley (1968) TV shows. This revealing portrait shows us what happened when fame and notoriety were thrust upon an essentially reticent man.
Featuring 40 films over four discs, this extensive collection is a major retrospective of the British documentary film movement during its period of greatest influence. These films - many of which are made available here for the first time since their original release - capture the spirit and strength, concerns and resolve of Britain and its people before, during and after the Second World War. Bearing witness to the social and industrial transformations of a rapidly changing world, these fascinating historical documents are all striking for their different approaches to the form. Using poetry, dramatic reconstruction, modernist techniques and explicit propaganda, the filmmakers found fresh, new ways to get their message across. Bringing together celebrated and lesser-known works from such luminaries as Paul Rotha, Humphrey Jennings, Ruby Grierson, Basil Wright and Paul Dickson...
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