This Island Earth (1955) - DVD in Movies: Science-Fiction/Fantasy

For reasons that defy logic, the excellent This Island Earth was held up for ridicule as an allegedly bad movie in the film version of TV's Mystery Science Theater . If not the best science-fiction film of the 1950s, Earth is certainly one of the most intelligent and elaborate. The story begins when the image of Exeter (Jeff Morrow), a huge-domed scientific genius from the planet Metaluna, appears on an experimental 3D television screen. Exeter invites several noted scientists from around the world...

As co-directed by Mark Linfield and Alastair Fothergill , the nature documentary Earth represents an edited-down version of the 12-hour small-screen miniseries Planet Earth , reslated for cinematic release. The program provides a sweeping, 99-minute tour of our home planet's biosphere -- spanning every level of gaze, from the epic (crystal-clear shots of the Earth hovering in space) to the hyper-specific (a mother polar bear and her cubs waking from a lengthy period of hibernation). The film almost...

John Boorman , who won the 1998 Cannes Film Festival's Direction award for this film, previously won the same Cannes award almost three decades earlier for his Leo the Last (1969) about an alienated aristocrat in a London slum. Shot in widescreen color (but printed in sharp black-and-white), The General is a biographical portrait of ruthless Irish crime lord Martin Cahill, shot down outside his home by a single assassin on August 18, 1994. After this opening, the film then unfolds as a lengthy flashback...