Library

Comments: Animated

Summary: The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly "Madagascar", a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica. The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. "Madagascar" doesn't achieve the snappy perfection of a Pixar movie, but it tops most other computer-animated efforts; the collision of friendship and predator instincts makes for an unusually gripping conflict. The vocal performances of the central characters is serviceable, but Sacha Baron Cohen ("Ali G") provides topnotch lunacy as the lemur king, and the penguins--voiced mostly by the animators themselves--are the best thing in the movie. "--Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com"

Languages: English

Sound: Dolby Digital

Summary: A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

Languages: English

Summary: I bought this yesterday as I knew I was going to miss it watching the football. I watched it late last night and it was so gripping and well made. It really did have the feel of a well made film. It portrayed the emotions and fears of the two 18 year soldiers so well, you go from feeling this must be a nightmare for them to thinking they are a bunch of wasters. My views by the end had changed so many times. I really think this is a sign of good film making. Bad result for my team but I felt better for watching this.

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Summary: Hold onto your hats as one fearless woman redefines heroism in the perilous arena of international espionage. With equal parts brains, beauty and brawn, Marvel’s Agent Carter on ABC ignites a firestorm of adventure, suspense and action-packed fun integral to the origins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 1946, top SSR (Strategic Scientific Reserve) operative Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is still reeling from the loss of Steve Rogers (a.k.a., Captain America). But now that the war is over, peacetime deals her yet another blow as she finds herself marginalized when the men return home from fighting abroad. Now her “missions” consist of fetching coffee and answering phones—until old acquaintance Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper) is framed for selling his deadliest weapons to the highest bidder, and he contacts the one person he trusts to clear his name: Agent Carter. Working as a secret double agent with the aid of Stark’s butler, Edwin Jarvis (James D’Arcy), Peggy must evade both her SSR colleagues and mysterious foreign assassins as she attempts to track down those responsible and dispose of the weapons before they inflict mass destruction. Relive all the glamour and excitement of Marvel’s Agent Carter: The Complete First Season with this must-own Blu-rayTM set that will transport you to a by-gone era full of modern-day thrills.

Languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese

Subtitles: Portuguese

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Languages: Englisch

Subtitles: Deutsch, Französisch, Italienisch

Sound: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1

Summary: Metal Up Your Ass! Metallica, eine der erfolgreichsten wie einflussreichsten Rockbands weltweit, lädt im Herbst 2013 zum Headbanging ganz besonderer Güte ein: Mit METALLICA - THROUGH THE NEVER 3D, einer spektakulären 32 Millionen Dollar-Produktion für die große Leinwand, werden die Säle der 3D-Kinos zu Rockarenen. Für dieses einzigartige Kinoerlebnis ließ die mit neun Grammy Awards ausgezeichnete Band eigens eine gigantische Bühne für über 15 Millionen Dollar entwerfen, die so nie wieder zu sehen sein wird, insgesamt 36 3D-Kameras filmten das Konzert. Lauter. Schneller. Härter. LIKE NEVER BEFORE!

Regisseur Nimród Antal ("Predators", "Motel", "Kontroll") führt in METALLICA - THROUGH THE NEVER 3D ein mitreißendes Konzert der Rock Stars mit einer fiktionalen Story zusammen: Während Metallica vor ausverkauftem Haus die ganz große Bühne rocken, hat ein junges Crew-Mitglied eine dringende Mission zu erfüllen, die sich zu einem verrückten Trip entwickelt. Für die Rolle des Roadies Trip konnte Shooting Star Dane DeHaan ("The Amazing Spider-Man 2", "The Place Beyond the Pines", "Chronicle - Wozu bist du fähig?") gewonnen werden.

Metallica ist eine der größten Rockbands aller Zeiten. Mit Alben wie "Kill 'Em All" oder "Master of Puppets" setzte sie im Metal-Genre neue Maßstäbe und eroberte Anfang der 90er Jahre mit ihrem "The Black Album" auch das Mainstream-Publikum. Nach wie vor füllen sie Stadien auf der ganzen Welt und haben bereits über 100 Millionen Alben verkauft.

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, Spanish

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0

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Summary: If you've already seen Michael McIntyre's 'Live at the Apollo', and watched him on various panel comedy shows then you'll be pleased to hear that his "Live and Laughing" tour isn't a re-working of his older material, although some of it does seem to be cropping up when he makes appearances on TV - but that's to be expected.

Yes there are a couple of lines which you may have seen practised on Mock the Week or something like that, but you watch this and feel that you're getting good value for money. McIntyre takes inspiration from his home life for much of the show, from his seemingly anti-Semitic baby, to booking a holiday, to the 'man drawer' (where the old batteries, keys to the old house, and the old mobile phones live) and this insight into his life makes him more endearing.

In a nutshell: I really enjoyed watching this tour live (at Sheffield) and my wife laughed so much that she was hurting. I initially gave this 4 stars, but in retrospect I think it deserves 5. The Live at the Apollo performance which is included on this DVD contains his legendary 'man getting his head stuck in the tube train doors' routine which always has me in stitches no matter how many times I watch it. This is a brilliant stand up performance, a lot of creative imagination has gone into it, and I do not doubt that you will laugh until you have tears.

Many stand-up DVDs contain nothing you haven't seen performed before, but the main feature is pretty much all new material, and the Live at the Apollo routine is effectively his 'best of the rest' - and it's all good!

Summary: Full of morally flawed characters, and shot in grainy desaturated colours, Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" is futuristic "film noir" with a far-fetched B-movie plot that's so feverishly presented the audience never gets a chance to ponder its many improbabilities. Based on a short story by Philip K Dick, the film is set in the Orwellian near-future of 2054, where a trio of genetically modified "pre-cogs" warn of murders before they happen. In an SF twist on the classic Hitchcockian wrong-man scenario, Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is the zealous precrime cop who is himself revealed as a future killer. Plot twists and red herrings drive the action forward, and complications abound, not least Anderton's crippling emotional state, his drug habit, his avuncular-yet-sinister boss (Max Von Sydow) and the ambitious FBI agent Witwer (Colin Farrell) snapping at his heels.
Though the film toys with the notion of free will in a deterministic universe, this is not so much a movie of grand ideas as forward-looking ones. Its depiction of a near-future filled with personalised advertising and intrusive security devices that relentlessly violate the right of anonymity is disturbingly believable. Ultimately, though, it's a chase movie and the innovative set-piece sequences reveal Spielberg's flair for staging action. As with "A.I." before it, there's a nagging feeling that the all-too-neat resolution is a Spielbergian touch too far: the movie could satisfactorily have ended several minutes earlier. Although this is superior SF from one of Hollywood's greatest craftsmen, it would have been more in the spirit of Philip K Dick to leave a few tantalisingly untidy plot threads dangling. --"Mark Walker"

Comments: Box set

Summary: Although Mr. Cruise may look fantastic, the absolute picture of health and physical fitness, in his latest outing, Mission: Impossible 111, his special agent formula seems to be wearing a bit thin. With lots of explosions and action sequences that look as though they have been almost edited out of existence, this third film in the franchise takes us to some exotic locales - Rome, Shanghai and Berlin, but it doesn't really offer up anything new or fresh.

Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is about to get married when he's sent on a secret mission which secretly re-assembles old team, now comprised of Ving Rhames, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and luscious but wooden supermodel Maggie Q. They all head out to capture evil international bad guy, arms dealer Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who is after something called the Rabbit's Foot (much to our frustration we never actually find out what the Rabbit's Foot is).

Fine actors Billy Crudup and Laurence Fishburne take small roles as bureau leaders. And Michelle Monaghan ends up kicking some b*tt as Ethan's lovely wife Julia. Obviously director J.J. Abrams is doing what he does best, bombarding us with extremely loud explosions, bulging rock music, prolonged gunfights, a series of chases of different varieties, jump-cut editing that's more like a teenage MTV video, and a convoluted plot that eventually leads nowhere.

This installment is certainly fused with a dark and furtive quality: there's torture scenes, unstable devices shot up nasal cavities into people's brains, ruined buildings, and women in danger. When there aren't explosions, there's lots of Tom running, and tumbling etc. The narrative makes no sense and Ethan's romantic entanglements do nothing to lend the movie any emotional gravitas, still the action sequences, when they're not shot in the dark, are at least well done and have an edgy, exciting quality about them.[...]

Summary: "Mission: Impossible" was one of the best action blockbusters of the 1990s, deriving a quality unique amongst its peers from the tension between Brian De Palma's directorial stylisation and the overriding presence of its star and producer, Tom Cruise. Cruise plays Special Forces agent Ethan Hunt, disavowed as a traitor by his own superiors and forced to uncover the true mole to prove his innocence. The original 1960s television series provides not only the wonderful musical motif, but also the layered complexity of false realities and masked identities, which are revealed with the playful conjuring of a Russian doll.
This was Cruise's last movie as an angst-ridden youth (next stop was "Jerry Maguire" and the trials of family life) and he presents Ethan Hunt as caught between his heroic physical prowess and a trusting emotional naïvety that is painfully punctured by the treachery of those around him. Hollywood heavyweights Jon Voight ("Heat") and Ving Rhames ("Pulp Fiction") are both excellent in support, while the remaining cast reads like an identikit of European cinema, including Emanuelle Beart, Kristin Scott Thomas and Jean Reno ("Leon").
De Palma's trademark set-pieces include a giant exploding fishtank in Prague, a helicopter chase through the Channel Tunnel, and, most notably, a break-in to steal a vital disc from CIA headquarters in Langley. The moment in the latter when, in almost complete silence, Cruise dangles precariously from a cable and just catches a bead of sweat before it triggers the floor alarm is as sublimely exhilarating as any in American movies of the last 10 years.
On the DVD: Aside from basic language and chapter selection the disc is devoid of any extras, leaving us to wait for the behind-the-scenes story of the numerous rewrites and wrangling that reportedly beset production. On a more positive note, the picture and sound quality fully realise the film's highly stylised surface beauty and effects-laden kinetic energy. --"Steve Napleton"

Summary: Visually stunning, and a likely must for John Woo aficionados, the second "Mission: Impossible" outing from megastar Tom Cruise suffers from an inconsistent tone and tired plot devices--not only recycled from other films, but repeated throughout the film. Despite remarkable cinematography and awe-inspiring, trademark Woo photography, the movie offers a tepid story from legendary screenwriter-director Robert Towne ("Chinatown") and a host of other writers, most uncredited.
Following on from the set pieces in the first big-budget, big box-office MI in 1996, it's clear (as Towne confirms) that the plot was developed around Woo- and Cruise-written action sequences. The film combines equal elements of romance and action, and is best when it features the stunning allure of Thandie Newton as Nyah, a master thief recruited by the sinewy charms of Ethan Hunt (a fit Cruise). Deeply in love after a passionate night, the couple must then combat MI nemesis (and Nyah's former lover) Sean Ambrose ("Ever After"'s Dougray Scott). Ambrose holds hostage a virus and its cure, and offers them to the highest bidder.
Woo's famed mythic film making is far from subtle, with heroic Hunt frequently slow-motion walking through fire, smoke or other similar devices, replete with a white dove among pigeons to signal his presence. The emphasis on romance is an attempt to develop character and a more human side to superspy Hunt, but still the story proves a distraction from the exciting action sequences. John Polson (as an MI team member) is an Aussie talent to keep an eye on. --"N.F. Mendoza"
M:I-2 DVD Extra Features
With more and more DVDs coming out with an extra DVD full of features at a slightly more expensive price, it's nice every so often to see a disc that offers not only a great movie, but a bundle of features on it as well.
The "M:i-2" DVD does just this, and features not only the widescreen presentation, but also a number of behind-the-scenes footage, a spoof documentary, breakdowns of some of the stunts and even a music video to boot.
Although the breakdown of scenes has that "Tom really did do it all, honest" feel to it, some of the elements are genuinely interesting. The biggest surprise of all though is the inclusion of the six-minute spoof documentary that was done for the MTV awards with Ben Stiller. All in all, a well presented disc and set of extra features. --"Stuart Miles"

Languages: English, Spanish, French

Subtitles: English, Spanish, French

Sound: AC-3

Summary: No plan. No backup. No choice. Agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his elite team (Jeremy Renner, The Avengers and Simon Pegg, Star Trek) go underground after a bombing of the Kremlin implicates the IMF as international terrorists. While trying to clear the agency's name, the team uncovers a plot to start a nuclear war. Now, to save the world, they must use every high-tech trick in the book. The mission has never been more real, more dangerous, or more impossible.

Summary: Import. Niet NL ondertiteld!

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Languages: English

Summary: I didn't know what to expect, but I must say I found it quite enjoyable. There was a lot of talk before the movie. People were saying that it will be too scary for the little kids, but not adult enough to capture older kids attention.

I can see it being quite frightening at times for the little ones, but of the kids in the theater its not like I heard any of them screaming mommy. I don't know how well the movie will do with kids, but from an adult's perspective, its definitely worth a viewing.

The best part of the movie definitely has to be the characters. Each were extremely well thought out and put together. They did a fantastic job of matching right voices with the right characters. Characters facial expressions were amazing. You'll find yourself laughing at things they say and do quite a lot.

The animation looks great. They certainly aren't ground breaking. But they fit the movie well. However, I will say that some scenes looked quite amazing.

If you are looking for a fun, clean movie with plenty of laughs and chuckles, this is definitely one you don't want to miss!

Languages: English

Summary: Six years after aliens invaded Earth, a security force maintains tenuous control in the Infected Zone straddling the U.S.-Mexican border. Andrew (Scoot McNairy), a photographer, is documenting this war-torn area when he's interrupted by an unexpected rescue mission. Samantha (Whitney Able), daughter of a media mogul who just happens to be his boss, needs an escort home, and Andrew reluctantly takes on the job.

Comments: Animated

Summary: The monsters in "Monsters, Inc." are just so incredibly cute--and they know it. Whereas Woody, Buzz and pals in the "Toy Story" saga were filled with self-doubt about just how much the children in their lives would continue to love them, here our heroic monsters and their impossibly lovable human ward Boo have no such worries, at least when it comes to the cinema audience. And that's why "Monsters, Inc.", for all its wondrous computer-animated artistry, its smart humour and its family-friendly appeal, doesn't quite capture the naïve charm of its predecessors.
Nevertheless, John Goodman and Billy Crystal, as scare-champions Sulley and Mike, are a great double-act whose comedy never goes over kids' heads but still reaches up to make their parents laugh. The film's central conceit--that monsters in the bedroom closet are just doing a night's work in order to generate power from screams for the city of Monstropolis--is funny and cleverly worked out; and kids will of course love the fact that the monsters are mortally afraid of the very children they are trying to frighten.
The animation is extraordinarily detailed (Sulley's fur is a marvel in itself) and the set-piece action sequences top anything that has gone before for sheer audaciousness. But overall Pixar play things very safe, from the hissable villain to the end credit "outtakes". A bolder film might have taken inspiration from "The Nightmare Before Christmas"; instead, a little of that Disney disease of knowing cuteness seems to have crept into the formula. --"Mark Walker"

Summary: The second best comedy ever made, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" must give precedence only to the same team's masterpiece, "The Life of Brian" (1979). Even though most of this film's set-pieces are now indelibly inscribed in every Python fan's psyche, as if by magic they never seem to pall. And they remain endlessly, joyfully quotable: from the Black Knight ("It's just a flesh wound"), to the constitutional peasants ("Come and see the violence inherent in the system!") and the taunting French soldier ("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"). Not forgetting of course the migratory habits of European and African swallows...
The film's mock-Arthurian narrative provides a sturdy framework for the jokes, and the authentic-looking production design is relentlessly and gloriously dirty. The miniscule budget turns out to be one of the film's greatest assets: Can't afford horses? Use coconuts instead. No money for special effects? Let Terry Gilliam animate. And so on, from Camelot ("it's only a model") to the rampaging killer rabbit glove puppet. True it's let down a little by a rushed ending, and the jokes lack the sting of "Life of Brian"'s sharply observed satire, but "Holy Grail" is still timeless comedy that's surely destined for immortality.
On the DVD: Disc One contains a digitally remastered anamorphic (16:9) print of the film--which is still a little grainy, but a big improvement on previous video releases--with a splendidly remixed Dolby 5.1 soundtrack (plus an added 24 seconds of self-referential humour "absolutely free"!). There are two commentaries, one with the two Terrys, co-directors Jones and Gilliam, the other a splicing together of three separate commentaries by Michael Palin, John Cleese (in waspish, nit-picking mood) and Eric Idle. A "Follow the Killer Rabbit" feature provides access either to the Accountant's invoices or Gilliam's conceptual sketches. Subtitle options allow you to read the screenplay or watch with spookily appropriate captions from Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part II".
The second disc has lots more material, much of it very silly and inconsequential (an educational film on coconuts, the Camelot song in "Lego" and so on), plus a long-ish documentary from 2001 in which Palin and Jones revisit Doune Castle, Glencoe and other Scottish locations. Perhaps best of all, though, are the two scenes from the Japanese version with English subtitles, in which we see the search for the Holy sake cup, and the Ni-saying Knights who want... bonsai! --"Mark Walker"

Summary: There is not a single joke, sight-gag or one-liner in "Monty Python's Life of Brian" that will not forever burn itself into the viewer's memory as being just as funny as it is possible to be, but--extraordinarily--almost every indestructibly hilarious scene also serves a dual purpose, making this one of the most consistently sustained film satires ever made. Like all great satire, the Pythons not only attack and vilify their targets (the bigotry and hypocrisy of organised religion and politics) supremely well, they also propose an alternative: be an individual, think for yourself, don't be led by others. "You've all got to work it out for yourselves", cries Brian in a key moment. "Yes, we've all got to work it our for ourselves", the crowd reply en masse. Two thousand years later, in a world still blighted by religious zealots, Brian's is still a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Aside from being a neat spoof on the Hollywood epic, it's also almost incidentally one of the most realistic on-screen depictions of the ancient world--instead of treating their characters as posturing historical stereotypes, the Pythons realised what no sword 'n' sandal epic ever has: that people are all the same, no matter what period of history they live in. People always have and always will bicker, lie, cheat, swear, conceal cowardice with bravado (like Reg, leader of the People's Front of Judea), abuse power (like Pontius Pilate), blindly follow the latest fads and giggle at silly things ("Biggus Dickus"). In the end, "Life of Brian" teaches us that the only way for a despairing individual to cope in a world of idiocy and hypocrisy is to always look on the bright side of life.
On the DVD: "Life of Brian" returns to Region 2 DVD in a decent widescreen anamorphic print with Dolby 5.1 sound--neither are exactly revelatory, but at least it's an improvement on the previous release, which was, shockingly, pan & scan. The 50-minute BBC documentary, "The Pythons", was filmed mainly on location in 1979 and isn't especially remarkable or insightful (a new retrospective would have been appreciated). There are trailers for this movie, as well as "Holy Grail" plus three other non-Python movies. There's no commentary track, sadly. --"Mark Walker"

Languages: English, German, Russian, French

Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Sound: Dolby Digital

Summary: Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners. It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys - seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 - possibly hope to succeed? But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind's greatest achievements. From director George Clooney, the film stars George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. The screenplay is by ...

Languages: Engels

Subtitles: Portugees

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Languages: English

Subtitles: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Mandarin Chinese

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