Brought back from his dead mouldering remains with blood drooled on them by one of the bats he commands, Count Dracula once again spreads his evil from his mountaintop castle. When libertine Paul Carlson disappears one night, his more sober brother Simon and his girlfriend trace him to the area, discovering a terrified populace. Thrown out of the inn, they make their way, like Paul before them, towards the sinister castle and its undead host.
This sprawling epic of bloodshed and excess, Brian De Palma's update of the classic 1932 crime drama by Howard Hawks, sparked controversy over its outrageous violence when released in 1983. Scarface is a wretched, fascinating car wreck of a movie, starring Al Pacino as a Cuban refugee who rises to the top of Miami's cocaine-driven underworld, only to fall hard into his own deadly trap of addiction and inevitable assassination.
The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming looks overly cute now, but really, it was pretty hip for 1966. The cold war was in full deep-freeze when this well-meaning comedy tried to thaw things out a little: a Soviet submarine beaches on the New England coast, sending the locals into a paranoid frenzy. The chief pleasure of the film is Alan Arkin as the sub captain; this was Arkin's first major film role, and he had already mastered his exasperated, slow-burning frown (to say nothing of mastering his Russian dialogue).
Rush Hour 2 retains the appeal of its popular predecessor, so it's easily recommended to fans of its returning stars, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan. The action--and there's plenty of it--starts in Hong Kong, where Detective Lee (Chan) and his L.A. counterpart Detective Carter (Tucker) are attempting a vacation, only to get assigned to sleuth a counterfeiting scheme involving a triad kingpin (John Lone), his lethal henchwoman (Zhang Ziyi, from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and an American billionaire (Alan King).
Sink the Bismarck! recounts one of the most famous battles in the history of naval warfare. Shot in semidocumentary style, the black-and-white film covers all sides in the famous hunt for the powerful German warship that terrorized the sea for eight days. The story and combat are rendered as faithfully as possible to C.S. Forester's novel. There are a few historical errors and some other minor liberties taken for dramatic license, both of which the viewer will easily be able to overlook.
After creating many of the innovative special effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Douglas Trumbull tried his hand at directing, and 1971's Silent Running marked an impressive debut.
A sadistic crime wave is sweeping across America. In Old Detroit, the situation is so bad a private corporation, Security Concepts, Inc., has assumed control of the police force. The executives at the company think they have the answer - until the enforcement droid they create kills one of their own. Then an ambitious young executive seizes the opportunity. He and his research team create a law enforcement cyborg from the body of a slain officer. They program RoboCop to: 1. Serve the public trust. 2. Uphold the law. 3. Protect the innocent. All goes well at first.
At last--a great American movie available on video for the first time in its original aspect ratio. For all the slasher pictures that have ripped off Psycho (and particularly its classic set piece, the "shower scene"), nothing has ever matched the impact of the real thing. More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters--then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you.
Comic genius Steve Martin delivers an incredible performance as an engaging small-town fire chief who has only one tiny flaw - no, make that one HUGE flaw - his astonishingly long nose. Although he considers it no laughing matter, the hilarity never stops as C.D. Bales (Martin) contends with jerky nose jokes, a bumbling crew of firemen and his secret love for gorgeous astronomy student Roxanne (Hannah). Unfortunately, she is attracted to fireman Chris (Rossovich), who's tall on looks and short on conversation. And when C.D.
Confined to his small courtyard apartment by a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) passes the time between visits from his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) by watching his neighbors with his binoculars through the rear window of his room. When Jeffries thinks he sees one of his neighbors murder his invalid wife and dispose of her body, he convinces Lisa to investigate. One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest masterpieces of suspense.
