- There were 39 specially written, thirtyminuteTV Sherlock Holmes filmsmade starring Ronald Howard asHolmes and Howard MarionCrawford as Watson. They wereproduced by Sheldon Reynolds andfilmed and scored in France. RonaldHoward was the son of the actor LeslieHoward, with whom he appeared inPimpernel Smith. Howard Marion-Crawford is one of those rare Holmes-Watson actors. This delightful collectionof
From Matt Reeves â€" the writer/director of Cloverfield â€" comes the new vampire classic that critics are calling “chillingly real†(Scott Bowles,! USA Today) and “one of the best horror films of the yearâ€! (Cinema tical). In bleak New Mexico, a lonely, bullied boy, Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee of The Road), forms a unique bond with his mysterious new neighbor, Abby (Chloë Grace Moretz of Kick-Ass). Trapped in the mind and body of a child, however, Abby is forced to hide a horrific secret of bloodthirsty survival. But in a world of both tenderness and terror, how can you invite in the one friend who may unleash the ultimate nightmare?
Based on the Swedish novel, Let the Right One In, “Let Me In is a dark and violent love story, a beautiful piece of cinema and a respectful rendering of my novel for which I am grateful.†(John Ajvide Lindqvist, author). Let Me In blends the innocent face of Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass) with the darkness of vampirism. A young boy named Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Road) has troubles at home (his parents are divorcing) and at school (bullies pick on him mercilessly). But when a mysterious girl named Abby (Moretz) moves i! n next door, Owen hopes he's found a friend, even though she smells a little strange. Unfortunately, his new friend needs blood to live, and the man who seems to be her father (Richard Jenkins, Six Feet Under) goes out to drain local residents to feed her. But even as Owen starts to suspect something is wrong, having a real friend might just matter more. Because the Swedish film adaptation of the novel Let the Right One In (on which Let Me In is based) was surprisingly popular and critically acclaimed, it's going to be hard for Let Me In to avoid comparisons. Surprisingly, it retains much of the flavor and spirit of the original. It's not as understated--this is an American movie, after all--and some of the creepiness is lost along with that subtlety. Despite that, Let Me In has its own spookiness and the performances (including Elias Koteas, Zodiac, as a local policeman) are strong. Directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield). ! --Bret FetzerUnited Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it! WILL NO T play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada: LANGUAGES: English ( Dolby Digital 5.1 ), Danish ( Subtitles ), Dutch ( Subtitles ), English ( Subtitles ), Finnish ( Subtitles ), Norwegian ( Subtitles ), Swedish ( Subtitles ), ANAMORPHIC WIDESCREEN (2.35:1), SPECIAL FEATURES: Anamorphic Widescreen, Deleted Scenes, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, SYNOPSIS: Oscar-winner Renée Zellweger stars in this terrifying supernatural thriller about a social worker who has been assigned the unusual and disturbing case of Lillith Sullivan … a girl with a strange and mysterious past. When Emily (Zellweger) opens her home in an attempt to help Lillith, it turns into a deadly nightmare she may not survive. Co-starring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover), Case 39 is a heart-stopping chiller with startling surprises that lead to a shocking and sinister ending. ...Case 39 ( Case Thirty Nine )Trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, five p! eople discover that the Devil is among them â€" and no one can escape their fate. This chilling, supernatural thriller from M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way to a heart-stopping ending with a truly wicked twist.Five people trapped in an elevator, and one of them is the Devil--it's an intriguing launch pad for a movie, and in the hands of producer M. Night Shyamalan, it has all the makings of a first-class supernatural thriller. Unfortunately, Shyamalan's concern is more with the mechanics of the story--how to pull off that celebrated final-act switcheroo--than in presenting flesh-and-blood characters or dialogue that reeks of pulp. There's a moral high-handedness to the proceedings that's also off-putting--there's a reason why these five strangers are trapped in the lift, and why Detective Messina (the very likable Chris Messina from Julie & Julia) is summoned to rescue them, and why every character ! is set in motion in Shyamalan's Skinner box of a plot, but it ! hinges o n very well-worn territory, which bites deeply into the story's novel conceit. The cast is uniformly fine--in addition to Messina, there are fine turns by such underrated actors as Bokeem Woodbine, Jenny O'Hara, Geoffrey Arend (in the elevator), and Matt Craven and Caroline Dhavernas (outside)--and the direction by John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine), who coproduced with brother Drew and Shyamalan, does an impressive job of keeping the action fluid in the confines of the setting. But the central conceit of Devil is comic book material tarted up as an event picture, which doesn't elicit much hope for the rest of Shyamalan's Night Chronicles trilogy, of which this is the first entry. --Paul GaitaWhen he arrives on the rural Louisiana farm of Louis Sweetzer, the Reverend Cotton Marcus expects to perform just another routine “exorcism†on a disturbed religious fanatic. An earnest fundamentalist, Sweetzer has contacted the charismatic preacher as a last! resort, certain his teenage daughter Nell is possessed by a demon who must be exorcized before their terrifying ordeal ends in unimaginable tragedy. Buckling under the weight of his conscience after years of parting desperate believers from their money, Cotton and his crew plan to film a confessionary documentary of this, his last exorcism. But upon his arrival at the already blood-drenched family farm, it is soon clear that nothing could have prepared him for the true evil he encounters there. Now, too late to turn back, Reverend Marcus’ own beliefs are shaken to the core as he and his crew must find a way to save Nell â€" and themselves â€" before it is too late.Just when you thought it was safe to see another shaky, handheld, faux-documentary horror movie… along comes The Last Exorcism to raise the creep factor. Supposedly we are watching a documentary crew tagging along after one Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a hell-raising preacher who sidelines in exorci! sms. He's got a leather-bound volume full of dire drawings and! incanta tions, and he knows the rubes just eat this kind of stuff up. Now Cotton has vowed to expose his own gimmicks for the camera, so he journeys to backwoods Louisiana to answer the call to save a putatively possessed girl--the better to debunk his own methods, once and for all, and get out of the exorcism business. Sounds like nothing could possibly go wrong. Then we meet the Sweetzer family: bible-thumping papa (Louis Herthum), not-quite-right son Caleb (eerie Caleb Jones), and possessed daughter Nell (Ashley Bell). Someone's been mutilating the farm's livestock, and dear little Nell has the vacant stare and sweet smile of a demon child. Director Daniel Stamm wisely allows the buildup to go on and on in non-hyped fashion, letting the sense of reality increase with each scene--the better to unleash the mayhem in the second half of the movie. It all goes over the top, and obviously the "found footage" gimmick has long since become a cliché that you either go along with or rejec! t. But the climax is enough to warm the heart of any self-respecting fan of devil movies, and The Last Exorcism is distinguished by some very good performances, especially TV veteran Patrick Fabian, who creates a deft, funny, full-blooded character. --Robert Horton“I was born under unusual circumstances.†And so begins The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: a man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. We follow his story, set in New Orleans, from the end of World War I in 1918 into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be. Directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett with Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, “Benjamin Button,†is a grand tale of a not-so-ordinary man and the people and places he discovers along the way, t! he loves he finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, ! and what lasts beyond time.The technical dazzle of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a truly astonishing thing to behold: this story of a man who ages backwards requires Brad Pitt to begin life as a tiny elderly man, then blossom into middle age, and finally, wisely, become young. How director David Fincher--with makeup artists, special-effects wizards, and body doubles--achieves this is one of the main sources of fascination in the early reels of the movie. The premise is loosely borrowed from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story (and bears an even stronger resemblance to Andrew Sean Greer's novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli), with young/old Benjamin growing up in New Orleans, meeting the girl of his dreams (Cate Blanchett), and sharing a few blissful years with her until their different aging agendas send them in opposite directions. The love story takes over the second half of the picture, as Eric Roth's script begins to resemble his work on Forrest Gump. This is too bad,! because Benjamin's early life is a wonderfully picaresque journey, especially a set of midnight liaisons with a Russian lady (Tilda Swinton) in an atmospheric hotel. Fincher observes all this with an entomologist's eye, cool and exacting, which keeps the material from getting all gooey. Still, the Hurricane Katrina framing story feels put-on, and the movie lets Benjamin slide offscreen during its later stages--curious indeed.--Robert Horton
39 Specially written, thirty-minute TV Sherlock Holmes' films made starring Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion as Watson. They were produced by Sheldon Reynolds and filmed and scored in France. Ronald Howard was the son of the actor Leslie Howard, with whom he appeared in Pimpernel Smith. Howard Marion-Crawford is one of those rare Holmes-Watson actors.
This delightful collection of adventures infuses the wonderful Holmes mysteries with fresh energy and vigor that provides hours of! thrilling entertainment. Each disk is prefaced with an introd! uction b y Christopher Lee (Lord of the Rings) who re-invigorated the role of Holmes in later features.
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