Between The Lines

Tony Garnett, one of British television's most critically acclaimed figures, has been responsible for producing some of the most radical and controversial UK drama, and is associated with ground-breaking directors such as Ken Loach.
His directorial debut, Prostitute, is the tale of two women - Sandra (Eleanor Forsythe), an ambitious but naïve Birmingham working girl who moves to London with the hopes of securing wealthier patrons, and Louise (Kate Crutchley) her social worker friend who is fighting to change the antiquated and hypocritical prostitution laws. As both strive to achieve their goals, a cold dose of reality dashes their hopes, and the built-in biases against women in society are unmasked. This frank and controversial exposé is finally presented here fully uncut and uncensored.

With this fact-based World War II drama and the equally memorable The Fourth Man (1983), Dutch director Paul Verhoeven gained an international following, eventually translating his reputation into Hollywood fame as the director of bloody science fiction spectacles and prurient sex thrillers. Rutger Hauer stars as Erik Lanshof, an aristocratic Dutch student, one of six carefree friends who don't care much for politics. When the Nazis invade Holland, however, the group is drawn inevitably into the conflict. While Alex (Derek de Lint) joins the German army, the suave Gus (Jeroen Krabbe) becomes a resistance leader, eventually escaping with Erik to England, where they become pawns in a much larger underground movement to restore their country's Queen Wilhelmina (Andrea Domburg) to her rightful throne. Based on an autobiographical novel by Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, Soldaat van Oranje (1978) also features early work by another Dutch master who went on to success as a director of big budget Hollywood films, cinematographer Jan De Bont.

Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which ran on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in the borough of Manhattan, New York City. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The original executive producers were Crane, Kauffman and Kevin S. Bright, with numerous others being promoted in later seasons.

A 16-year old boy, Claude, insinuates himself into the house of a fellow high-school student, Rapha, and writes about his family in essays that perversely blur the lines between reality and fiction for his jaded literature teacher, Germain. Intrigued by this gifted and unusual student, Germain rediscovers his taste for teaching, but the boy's intrusion sparks a series of uncontrollable events. Kristin Scott-Thomas plays Germain's wife, Jeanne, a contemporary art gallery director, who, alongside her husband, avidly follows Claude's semi-imaginary escapades, while Emmanuelle Seigner plays Rapha's mom, Claude's object of desire.

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

On March 20, explore the many mysteries of ancient wisdom and occult belief when KOCH Vision releases DAN BURSTEIN’S SECRETS OF THE OCCULT, an illuminating DVD exploring the controversial and often overlooked link between magic and science. The spellbinding DVD, from Hidden Treasures Productions, includes two one-hour programs, The Magicians and The Scientists, which examine the world of the occult from the Ancient Greek and Egyptian magicians to the cutting edge scientists of today.

University scientist Professor Chambers (Kenne Duncan) has succeeded in perfecting his Cyclotrode, a powerful atomic weapon that can be used to destroy any electrically-powered device. A mysterious master criminal who calls himself The Crimson Ghost promptly sets out to gain control of this valuable new invention, with the assistance of a gang of thugs and a sinister array of scientific gadgets. Chambers’ colleague Duncan Richards (Charles Quigley), a noted criminologist, tirelessly battles the Ghost and his followers, aided by university secretary Diana Farnsworth (Linda Stirling) and warmly supported by a quartet of university scientists–one of whom, however, is secretly the Crimson Ghost himself.

In his controversial masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona. Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him. Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

SCENERY and sadism are the main things on display in John Frankenheimer's ''The Challenge,'' a hard-boiled action film with great hopes of becoming something more. The setting is modern, urban Japan, presented with a fair amount of realism and detail. And the story, by Richard Maxwell and John Sayles, works hard to contrast East and West, old and new. There is much about ''The Challenge,'' which opens today at Loews State and other theaters, to make the viewer sorry it isn't better.

Cecil B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man is a first and a last. The 1914 version is widely regarded as the first feature film made in Hollywood. And DeMille makes the final film under his MGM contract with a 1931 Talkie of the oft-told tale (DeMille lensed a second silent version in 1918) about a British outcast in the West, his Native American bride and events that shatter their happiness. The films vary greatly. The first is packed with events – a horse race, a brawl with a Scotland Yarder, a shipboard fire, a night in New York – that foreshadow DeMille’s ambitious narrative reach. The second hones in on the tender and ultimately heartbreaking familial relationship. Same story. Same filmmaker. A rare chance to experience them in different ways.