Until Dawn

Owning The Origins of Film three disc box set from Image is like having your own private museum of film history. Boasting hours of quality programming from the silent era as compiled and preserved by the Library of Congress Video Collection, this set celebrates some of the art form’s earliest and most significant movies, from the earliest films by both African American and female directors to a treasure trove of animation’s earliest days. Author Kevin Brownlow has called the silent era the richest period of cinema history, and one need look no further than The Origins of Film to confirm the validity of that statement. Before there was Spike Lee, there was Oscar Micheaux. Before there were Jane Campion or even Ida Lupino, there were Alice Guy-Blache and Lois Weber. And before there were Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, there were Krazy Kat and the Katzenjammer Kids.

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.

Shot over four weeks, either through the night or from dawn till lunchtime Every Day Except Christmas follows several Covent Garden market porters working from midnight to midday. Filmed on 35mm, it was one of the most ambitious of the Free Cinema titles and in markedly optimistic fashion celebrates the virtues and dignity of ordinary people at work.

Shortly after The Terminator wrote his name in bold neon lights across box-office grosses, this action thriller took advantage of the hitherto (almost) unexploited comic side of star Arnold Schwarzenegger and paired him with Rae Dawn Chong. Colonel Matrix (Schwarzenegger) is retired and living peaceably with his 10-year-old daughter when she is kidnapped by the henchmen of an exiled Latin American dictator. The dictator's plan is to reinstate himself in power by eliminating the president of his country, using Matrix to kill him (or he will kill the kidnapped daughter). Matrix escapes from the plane that is supposed to be carrying him to his mission and then proceeds to go from one violent confrontation to the next as he hunts down the dictator and moves to rescue his daughter. Helping him is Cindy (Chong), who has her own reasons for wanting the dictator dead.

"Late Blossom" follows the lives of two couples who live in the same neighborhood. Kim Man-Suk (Lee Soon-Jae) delivers milk on a motorbike at dawn. He curses a lot, but actually has a warm heart. One day when he goes up a slope, he meets Ms. Song (Yun So-Jeong) - a lonely woman who works hards by collecting and selling scrap paper. Man-Suk feels something special toward Ms. Song. Jang Kun-Bong (Song Jae-Ho) works in a parking lot. Jang Kun-Bong has a wife (Kim Soo-Mi) who suffers from Alzheimer's. He works from dawn until late at night. After work he comes home and takes care of his wife.

Okawa Hashizo is "Red Peony" Hanji whi is thrown into jail where he gets involved in a plot to steal government gold from the Shogun's Vault. A tough fighter, he has to show his ability in order to keep from getting himself killed by the prisoners. This film is loaded with surprises right from the opening moments. Powerful, exciting, filled with suspense and loaded with great action, A must watch to see the mystery unfold.

This superbly produced four-disc set in Eureka's Master of Cinema series features his three very different takes on Mabuse: the five-hour Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (1922), one of the masterpieces of silent cinema which captured the malaise of the Weimar Republic; The Testament of Dr Mabuse (1933), which targeted the ascendancy of Nazism and was his last German film before going into exile; and The 1,000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse (1960), his final movie, reflecting his thoughts on the new Germany and the cold war.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Willard E. Pugh, Akosua Busia, Adolph Caesar, Rae Dawn Chong, Dana Ivey, Leonard Jackson, Carl Anderson, Susan Beaubian, Laurence Fishburne, Leon Rippy

This film follows the life of Celie, a young black girl growing up in the early 1900's. The first time we see Celie, she is 14 - and pregnant - by her father. We stay with her for the next 30 years of her tough life…

Nominated for 11 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 8 nominations.

Walking with Beasts is a 2001 six-part television documentary produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. In North America it has been retitled Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, and the original Discovery Channel broadcast was narrated by Stockard Channing.