One of the last great all-star WW2 films and still looks superb today. Appalling that no extras are included, as the 2-DVD has some good ones. Especially the Attenborough interview.

Coincidentally Michael Caine & Alun Armstrong appear in both of the above films.

good choices there Reaps, Get carter is Class and Bridge Too Far is great, I really like Escape to Victory too because of watching Sly stallone in the Goal position....

And gets facial abuse in both of them.

"Bridge" is wonderful. Epic, personal, exciting, unflinching.
It shows horrors and stupidity that come with war without ever being anti-soldier, without ever being short-sightedly just anti-war or pro-poor picked on Nazis.
Something war film makers today could learn from.

"Carter" is just genius. One to return to again and again.

And you have to have a soul of stone not to wallow like a pig in silly crud not to get a blast from "Escape to Victory".
Still one of THE most crowd pleasing, just plain fun, films ever made and blow 'reality 'out your arses critics.

I watched Man Bites Dog last night. Its a well made very, very black comedy about three guys making a documentry about a serial killer. The guy they are profiling seems intelligent and engaging and throught the film the film-makers are made more implicit in his crimes. If you havent seen it its definitely worth a look.

Two great film scores too, courtesy of messrs Addison & Budd. Both gone now alas but also reminders of the days when professional film composers produced top class film music. :ohwell:

Oh yes! Most certainly.




"The Mummy's Curse"

http://www.beardyfreak.com/rvmumcurse.php

Well, we finally got here. The end of the ‘Universal’ Kharis films.
And sadly this is a case of a film too far, as “Curse” is a rather tired, rather pointless, sequel to a story that ended in a perfectly fine (and nicely unexpected) way in the superior “The Mummy’s Ghost”.

Things don’t get off to a good start with the opening scene featuring a singing tavern wench (who looks like a moonlighting middle aged housewife) who for a minute or so shovels more aural muck in our ears than even Kharis has in his after being in that damn swamp all these years.
Talking of whichthe swamp has moved locale from New England to Cajun Louisiana!
Seems it’s not only Kharis who mysteriously gets up and walks. The entire friggin swamp has too!

We also sadly have the Kharis legend re-told to us yet again. Meaning we have to sit through that damn recycled footage again from Karloff’s “The Mummy” along with its altered footage from “The Mummy’s Hand”.
Which means we now see Tom Tyler play Kharis again, despite Lon Chaney playing Kharis again! My brain hurts!

Despite his dislike of the role by this time Chaney does okay again as Kharis and throttles those that he deems worthy of throttling with great skill.
The less said about Napoleon Simpson’s weirdly monikered 'Goobie' the better, as he’s a great example of dubious Hollywood portrayals of Black characters as he spends much of the film saying stuff like “Yesum masser, I done saw him go thatta way” rather a lot.

But it’s not all negatives.
“Curse” famously features one of the best moments in the entire series when Ananka comes back to life.
Her ‘rising up’ scene is pretty damn effective with some excellent physical acting by Virginia Christine as Ananka painfully stretches her mummified limbs before slowly standing up and staggering away with her closed, dirt covered eyes, straining towards the unseen sun.

Action is pretty good but is really just the exact same shuffling up to the victims and one hand throttling them, mostly out of frame, we have now seen in three other films.

Perhaps it was because this was now the forth Kharis film I’ve watched in the past couple of weeks, but I was getting a serious, and rather sense-dulling, case of deja-vu here.

Even the pretty fast pace failed to drive me out of this rather lethargic state until we get to a very weak finale that, after the excellent fiery peril of “Tomb” and the surprisingly dark tragedy of “Ghost” is a real damp squib to end the entire Kharis cycle on as it simply involves a few cardboard stones falling down.

So not a very good film in general, and a very poor way to end the series.
It’s watchable enough but quite frankly if you do go through the Kharis story arc…you should just end it at “The Mummy’s Ghost”.

Man Bites Dog is a great film. :cool:

Cool,will add those to my my to buy list.

Return To Horror High

Starring Vince Edwards (whose career was over and needed the money), Alex Rocco (whose career was ending and needed the money), Maureen McCormick (whose career was brief and needed the money), and George Clooney (whose career was starting and needed the money).

Absolute tripe.