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Much-loved BBC drama The Box Of Delights is making its Blu-ray debut for its 40th anniversary. More on the release here.

Fully appreciating that some (younger) people will read this post and have no idea what it’s actually about, The Box Of Delights was a much-loved festive children’s television drama that first aired in 1984.

Based on the book by John Masefield, the BBC adapted it into a six-parter, that it ran in the run-up to Christmas. From its festive theme tune, to Patrick Troughton in a fine beard, wolves running and a wonderfully 1980s visual effects, the programme quickly became hugely popular. So much so that a relatively successful DVD release popped up too.

It’s not been in great shape though in terms of its presentation for some time now. Hence, the really rather excellent news that for its 40th anniversary, the BBC has remastered The Box Of Delights...

US producer Alan Poul will be the industry guest speaker for this month’s CinefestOZ Industry Program.

Poul’s producing and directing credits include Netflix’s The Eddy, and Tales of the City, BBC’s MotherFatherSon, as well as HBO’s Westworld, The Newsroom, and Six Feet Under.

He has also directed episodes of HBO’s Rome, and Big Love, as well as Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, and the pilots for the TNT series Perception.

The Emmy and Golden Globe-winning producer is in the midst of executive producing the upcoming HBO Max series Tokyo Vice at Endeavour Content, where his company Boku Films is based.

Poul, whose appearance will be presented via the American Film Showcase, will be joined by local, national, and international guests in the two-day program, which incorporates 10 sessions across August 26-27.

Available online and in-person, the discussions are set to address the contemporary challenges faced...

Yuhang Ho had a very difficult task in his hands from the beginning: to shoot an action martial arts film where all of his protagonists are (almost) over 50. The result, however, was more than impressive, as he worked over the particular reef by limiting the action and adding many thriller elements.

“Mrs K” will screen at Art Film Fest Kosice, that will be on June 16-24

Mrs K is a housewife, happily married with a gynecologist, and mother to a teenage girl who is also a martial artist. However, underneath the calm, happy and motherly figure resides something else, as Mrs K used to be part of a crime ring. As her former comrades are being killed one by one, a rather unpleasant former police officer visits her house and confronts her about the past. Furthermore, another man, who seems to know her quite well, resurfaces, and along with his henchman,...

Koan Hui—former man Friday to Hong Kong maestro Tsui Hark and co-writer of Tsui’s Time And Tide and The Blade—makes his directing debut with League Of Gods, a 3-D extravaganza of canted angles and composited whooshes that luxuriates in an unreality unknown in Hollywood outside of the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer. It may not have an ending or even a climax. It may not have dialogue that rises above the level of “So, Nine-Tail Fox isn’t the biggest threat! Actually, it was the Black Dragon!” or characters who emote in anything other than evil, heroic, or lovelorn stares. But it has an old man who turns into a towel and many giant animals and a six-armed baby who flies around on a jet of his own highly pressurized piss, ripping crab-people in half with his seismic waves of flatulence. That counts for something.

Technically speaking, League Of...

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Is Agent Carter season 2 as good as season 1? No. It's even better. The opening two-parter is flawless Marvel television...

This review contains spoilers.

2.1 The Lady In The Lake & 2.2 A View In The Dark

In the past, I’ve criticised Marvel’s TV output for too-frequently failing to meet the high standards of the movies. Even the Netflix output, which has been occasionally excellent, is uneven at best. In fact, of all Marvel’s spin-offs, it’s fair to say that the first season of Agent Carter is the only one they completely nailed. So it’s with some delight I can say that the episodes that get Season 2 rolling are, if anything, even better.

This is, by some distance, as close as I’ve come to feeling like I’m watching a Marvel movie within the TV format. It’s funny, it’s fast-paced, and the characters are multi-faceted but consistent.

ABC’s Agent Carter Time And Tide TV Show Review. Agent Carter: Season 1 Episode 3: Time And Tide is a compelling mix of action and intrigue that holds true to the tone of the previous episodes. Anyone that has been a fan of televisions series such as Alias and Lost know very [...]

Continue reading: TV Review: Agent Carter: Season 1, Episode 3: Time And Tide [ABC]...

Vials of blood, broken necks and a seriously entertaining Howard Stark. That's just some of what this week's Agent Carter served up...

This review contains spoilers.

1.4 The Blitzkrieg Button

If you've been wondering why Dominic Cooper's Howard Stark isn't appearing in every episode, this week gives us a tacit admission: as a chronically vain one-liner spouting playboy, he's in danger of walking off with the series if he appears too much. It's not a surprise, really. He's essentially a one-man punchline, revelling in all the same things that make Peggy's life hard, and yet we love him for it. Pool table in a shipping container? How can we resist?

That said, the real problem with Stark's inclusion is that there isn't really space in the episode for him And Jarvis, so the latter was sidelined for the majority of the show. It's great to watch Atwell's comic timing play off Cooper's,...

ABC‘s Agent Carter Time and Tide Review. Peggy Carter Cast: The Agent Carter Podcast: Season 1, Episode 3: Time and Tide is an audio review in which FilmBook contributor Mike Smith discusses his reaction to the latest episode of ABC’s Agent Carter. Agent Carter: Season 1, Episode 3: Time and Tide‘s plot synopsis [...]

Continue reading: Peggy Carter Cast: The Agent Carter Podcast S1E3 – Time and Tide...

Ready for more villain nicknames? You’d better be, because The Flash has plenty more a-coming…

The particle accelerator dark matter explosion thingy was a masterstroke in the creation of The Flash, meaning that there will never be a shortage of baddies for Barry to defeat, and Cisco to nickname. It’s like the storm from Misfits, but with a tad more explanation.

The latest to join the villainous ranks will be Devon Graye, who you might recognise from Dexter (he played the teenage version of Dexter himself). In The Flash, he will be portraying a copy-cat version of The Trickster, who will be played by Mark Hamill, who is reprising his role from the 1990s show.

Both appear in episode 17. Here’s a little trailer to refresh your memory of all those villains, and tease a few of the new ones…

More The Flash news as we hear it.

Marvel Studio’s Jeph Loeb has been discussing the future of Agent Carter, and the possibilities for Avengers crossovers…

Since he disappeared in the premiere episode of Agent Carter, fans have been wondering if we would see more Howard Stark.

“Howard returns,” Marvel's Jeph Loeb has confirmed, “and as you can guess from there, there might be reasons he reached out to Agent Carter at the beginning, that he wasn’t entirely truthful about.”

Loeb was asked at the same Television Critics Association event whether Agent Carter would cross over with Age Of Ultron - an interesting question, as the properties exist decades apart. The theme of Starks’ ‘bad babies’ getting out of their control is a shared plot element, though.

Loeb’s response was interesting: “the safest thing I would like to say is that #It’s All Connected.”

It’s unclear whether he actually said ‘hash-tag’ out loud,...

Agent Carter starring Hayley Atwell continues its winning streak with a strongly written third episode...

This review contains spoilers.

1.3 Time And Tide

After a strong pair of opening episodes, this week's Agent Carter proved that the series has no intention of slowing down the pace with a third instalment that advances the plot, develops the main characters and turns in some surprising twists for the supporting cast. It may have been slightly lighter on action, but it's testament to the show's strong writing and well-drawn characters that when the fight scene turned up you'd almost forgotten the show's genre demanded one.

The most interesting thread this episode pulled on was Jarvis' backstory. It's been clear from the first instalment that he wasn't exactly an ordinary butler, and in this episode he claims to have been mountaineering before the war, and that he was discharged from the army for treason after...

Giving Agent Carter an eight-episode order gives the show license to act a bit like a cable show — that is, faster. Unlike Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter doesn’t need to hold a story line over a full season, so we don’t get three or four “Ill-Advised Invention of the Week” episodes before “Time and Tide,” where Jarvis and Peggy find all the inventions in one place. I’m a little amused by the fact that they simply follow a giant hole in the floor of Stark’s mansion straight to the river and the boat of floating goods. Did no one search that house after Stark was accused?The boat is where we come upon our one and only fight sequence in the episode, and it’s amazing, as expected. Marvel’s female fight sequences are doozies even if they are few and far between, and they’re...

Agent Carter, Season 1, Episode 3: “Time and Tide”

Written by Andi Bushnell

Directed by Scott Winant

Airs Tuesdays at 9pm (Et) on ABC

First things first, “Time and Tide” is a very boring hour of television compared to the boom of a start Agent Carter got off to in its first two episodes. It’s one thing to spend all of a season’s budget in the pilot, it is another thing to make that explicitly clear by having the very next installment turn out dull as dirt. Through the first 48 minutes or so of the episode, close to nothing happens besides small talk and exposition between various characters. What’s worse, much of this dialogue is used to dispense information the audience should already know, or at least be able to guess is coming a mile away. For a limited event series currently confined to eight episodes, an entire...

This week on ABC’s Marvel’s Agent Carter, Jarvis landed in the Ssr’s crosshairs and a happy discovery wound up having deadly consequences.

In the wake of the massive implosion that happened when the milk truck full of nitramene drove off the cliff, Peggy started researching the mysterious “heart” symbol that Leet Brannis scrawled in the dirt before dying, while the boys at the Ssr followed up on Krzeminski’s discovery of a license plate in the refinery wreckage.

Learning that the tag belonged to Howard Stark’s car, Agent Thompson paid a visit to the fugitive inventor’s home,...

Join us each week as we review the latest episode of Agent Carter. Warning: the following review contains major spoilers for the newest episode of the show. Episode 3: "Time and Tide" Synopsis: As Agent Carter closes in on Howard Stark’s stolen technology, Peggy’s secret mission could unravel when the Ssr arrests Jarvis and a secret is revealed. Recap: The results are in and most fans and critics have given the thumbs up to Agent Carter....

The opening title card improbably, surprisingly reads “New York 2015,” and within seconds we are immersed in a expatriate Chinese holiday party for a friend about to leave for a new job. The images come fast and contextless; CGI renderings of New York, quick interiors, and critically, a glimmer of analogue past. An old Chinese film starts accidentally on the group’s karaoke machine, prompting groans and rolling eyes. Quickly (inevitably), the same footage is played on a cell phone, in the back of a cab. A lone man, pulled by nostalgia and memory, is lured into the image and an impromptu journey to his home town.

Tsui Hark’s The Taking of Tiger Mountain 3D is the latest in the director’s career-long exploration/re-interpretation of key Chinese myths, events, narratives and texts, and we find our subject here as young party guests accidentally cue up Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy,...

"Time and Tide" is the title of the second episode of Marvel's "S.H.I.E.L.D." prequel, "Agent Carter", written by Andi Bushell and directed by Scott Winant, airing January 13, 2015 on ABC:

"...while 'Agent Carter' (Peggy Atwell) closes in on recovering the stolen technology of 'Howard Stark', her secret mission could unravel when the 'Ssr' arrests 'Jarvis' and a dangerous secret is revealed..."

"Marvel's Agent Carter" stars Hayley Atwell as 'Agent Peggy Carter', James D'Arcy as 'Edwin Jarvis', Chad Michael Murray as 'Agent Jack Thompson', Enver Gjokaj as 'Agent Daniel Sousa' and Shea Whigham as 'Chief Roger Dooley'.

Guest stars include Lyndsy Fonseca as 'Angie Martinelli', Kyle Bornheimer as 'Agent Ray Krzeminski', Meagan Fay as 'Miriam Fry', Patrick Smith as 'Agent Wallace', Alexander Carroll as 'Agent Yauch', Rob Mars as 'Jerome Zandow', Lesley Boone as 'Rose', Benita Robledo as 'Carol', Bridget Regan as 'Dottie Underwood',...

Above: Pedro Costa's Horse Money

The Locarno Film Festival has announced their lineup for the 67th edition, taking place this August between the 6th and 16th. It speaks for itself, but, um, wow...

"Every film festival, be it small or large, claims to offer, if not an account of the state of things, then an updated map of the art form and the world it seeks to represent. This cartography should show both the major routes and the byways, along with essential places to visit and those that are more unusual. The Festival del film Locarno is no exception to the rule, and I think that looking through the program you will be able to distinguish the route map for this edition." — Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director

Above: Matías Piñeiro's The Princess of France

Concorso Internazionale (Official Competition)

A Blast (Syllas Tzoumerkas, Greece/Germany/Netherlands)

Alive (Jungbum Park, South Korea)

Horse Money (Pedro Costa,...

Tiff’s Midnight Madness program turned 25 this year, and for two and half decades, the hardworking programers have gathered some of the strangest, most terrifying, wild, intriguing and downright entertaining films from around the world. From dark comedies to Japanese gore-fests and indie horror gems, the Midnight Madness program hasn’t lost its edge as one the leading showcases of genre cinema. In its 25-year history, Midnight Madness has introduced adventurous late-night moviegoers to such cult faves as Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. But what separates Midnight Madness from, say, Montreal’s three and half week long genre festival Fantasia, is that Tiff selects only ten films to make the cut. In other words, these programmers don’t mess around. Last week I decided that I would post reviews of my personal favourite films that screened in past years. And just like the Tiff programmers,...

Chris Colfer attends the PaleyFest Icon Awards honoring Ryan Murphy

Birthday shoutouts go to Stephanie Beacham, who is 66, Cindy Wilson is 56, and Bernadette Peters is 65. In ratings news, for the first time ever, Modern Family beat American Idol in the crucial demo.We Found Our Son In The Subway. We need more judges like this. Tony Winner Idina Menzel will return to Broadway next year in the musical If/Then, by the same creative time who brought us Next To Normal Documents reveal close ties between National Geographic Channel, Boy ScoutsA big shoutout to Ae reader Pomegranate Paul (Nathan Kotecki), who has published the novel The Suburban Strange. Here's the synopsis: "Shy Celia Balaustine is new to Suburban High, but a mysterious group of sophomores called the Rosary has befriended her. Friends aside, Celia soon discovers something is not quite right at Suburban. Girls at the school begin having near-fatal...

Magic City S01E08: "Time and Tide"

What would you say is one of the worst potential times to get arrested for murder? I mean, in theory any time is a bad time, but when you're in the middle of a presentation to CBS that might just save your livelihood after you blew it all on a bad bet...that.s up there right?

It was during such a presentation that Ike Evans. luck, charm, and resources finally ran out. Da Klein quite literally tortured Judi Silver into implicating Ike in the...  More >>...

On TV this Friday: The A.N.T. Farm opens back up as Magic City closes its doors, NBC’s Best Friends return for a final hurrah and Bones digs up a fun blast from the past. We’ve found nine programs to keep on your radar.

8 pm A.N.T. Farm (Disney) | Double-episode Season 2 premiere: Chyna, Olive and Fletcher roll out the red carpet for teen movie sensation Sequoia Jones (played by Shake It Up‘s Zendaya), who is shadowing Chyna for a movie role; the A.N.T.s try to figure out the nature of a baby’s prodigal aptitude.

8 pm...

Shadow Dancer

It's been a good week for festival news junkies. Sundance has opened, Rotterdam's full schedule is now online, Cannes has named Nanni Moretti as President of the Jury for the 65th edition in May, and the Berlinale's been rolling out lineup after lineup. Today's addition: "With seven more films, the Competition program of the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival is nearing completion. To date it includes 22 films, of which 17 are vying for the Golden and Silver Bears. 18 films will celebrate their world premieres in the Competition of the Berlinale 2012."

So, the story so far:

À moi seule (Coming Home). France. By Frédéric Videau (Le fils de Jean-Claude Videau, Variéte Francaise). With Agathe Bonitzer and Reda Kateb. World premiere.

Bel Ami. Great Britain. By Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod (feature debut). With Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas and Christina Ricci. World premiere / Out of Competition.

En kongelig affære...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? Tatsumi Trailer "Yoshihiro Tatsumi is a mangaka known for his gekiga style of alternate Japanese manga." Wish I knew what that meant. Director Eric Khoo...

Andrea Riseborough in James Marsh's Shadow Dancer Robert Pattinson/Bel Ami, Michael Fassbender/Haywire: Berlin Film Festival 2012 Below is the list of the latest movie additions to the Berlin Film Festival's Official Competition line-up: À moi seule (Coming Home). France. By Frédéric Videau (Le fils de Jean-Claude Videau, Varieté Française). With Agathe Bonitzer, Reda Kateb. World premiere. Bel Ami, Great Britain. By Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod (feature debut). With Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Breaking Dawn Part 2, Eclipse, New Moon, Twilight, Remember Me, Water for Elephants, Cosmopolis), Uma Thurman (Henry & June, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Gattaca, Playing the Field), Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient, Dans la maison, Sarah's Key, Love Crime, Nowhere Boy, Tell No One, Gosford Park, The Horse Whisperer, Mission: Impossible), Christina Ricci (Speed Racer, Fear and the Loathing in Las Vegas, The Opposite of Sex,...

Popular Monday Night Double-Feature Block to Present Full Month of Horror Madness

Culver City, Calif., Sept. 26, 2011 - Sony Movie Channel is celebrating Halloween throughout the entire month of October as its weekly double-feature block Mandays takes a stab as Killer Mandays.

“Sony Movie Channel is thrilled to bring such high quality horror films to our viewers during the month of October,” said Superna Kalle. “With such prestigious filmmakers as John Carpenter and Tsui Hark programmed for Killer Mandays, our audience will be screaming for more.”

The thrills will continue online when from Monday, October 3rd - Thursday, November 3rd, sonymoviechannel.com will launch a “Killer Mandays Costume Contest,” where people can submit a photograph of their best horror costume. The winner, voted on by the public, will win a Sony Blu-ray Player and a “Resident Evil” Blu-ray collection. Additional prizing to ten second place winners will include a “Resident Evil” Blu-ray collection.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but Martial Arts films have been getting better and better. They are doing some fantastically cool and inventive stuff for these movies, and I've really been enjoying many of the most recent martial arts films that have been released. 

A great teaser trailer has been released for Tsui Hark's new film Flaying Sword of Dragon Gate, which stars Jet Li. Hark is know for making some pretty incredible martial arts films such as Time and Tide, which if you haven't seen yet, put it on your list it will blow your mind. The film also stars  Zhou Xun, Aloys Chen Kun, Li Yuchun and Kwai Lun-Mei.

Hark's new film looks like it has the potential to be just as jaw dropping, this is only a teaser trailer so what is shown is just the tip of the iceberg. The story follows...

[While Red State is likely going to gather all the attention tonite in Montreal, one would be a fool to ignore Tsui Hark's high-fantasy and special effects laden ScoobyDoo-esque mystery-blockbuster (and I mean that in a very kind and enthusiastic way) which will light up the Hall Theatre immediately after.  Thus we shall revisit Todd's review from the archives.]It's been a while since Tsui Hark has produced a real crowd pleaser. Once the absolute top of the heap when it came to action film, his peak period spinning out hits by the fistful as both a producer and a director, the general consensus is that his last really good film was Time And Tide a full decade ago with more recent efforts like Seven Swords and Missing bogging down in overly convoluted plots...

Considered by many to be the king of the Wu Xia martial arts genre, Tsui Hark is literally a living legend of cinema with a prolific career that has spanned over the last 30 years. Known for his outlandish style of quick cuts, kinetic action choreography and of course over the top wire work that helped define the Wu Xia genre into what it is today. Some of his best known titles include Once Upon a Time in China, Zu Warriors, Time and Tide and more recently Seven Swords and Detective Dee and The Phantom Flame.

Over the weekend, Hark was awarded the Star Asia lifetime achievement award at the New York Asian Film Festival and invited to take part in select screenings of some of his classic films including The Blade and Zu: Warriors From the Magic Mountain. I was fortunate enough to sit down with martial arts maestro and...

It's been a while since Tsui Hark has produced a real crowd pleaser. Once the absolute top of the heap when it came to action film, his peak period spinning out hits by the fistful as both a producer and a director, the general consensus is that his last really good film was Time And Tide a full decade ago with more recent efforts like Seven Swords and Missing bogging down in overly convoluted plots and uninspired scripts. Looking back over this period - as well as the five year span prior, with the gap between The Blade and Time And Tide also fairly shaky - one other factor becomes apparent. Somewhere along the line Hark seemed to forget that movies are meant to...

Think of My Dinner With Andre with Wallace Shawn. Or how about Before Sunraise or Before Sunset with Ethan Hawke and Julie Depley? Those films involved two characters and were centered around a prolonged conversation. These seemingly simple films attracted a good amount of buzz and lead to breakouts for the people involved with them and some award nominations. Director Jason Toler hopes to score his own breakout utilizing the same format as the above films, but giving it a horror twist with Half Moon. Half Moon has an ambitious plot, an ambitious story and people are taking notice. The film got distribution with the indie horror company Breaking Glass Pictures. Half Moon involves a lowly hooker who gets mixed up with a client that swears he is going to turn into a werewolf. Hoping to score some money from his vault, she ends up taking the poor sap hostage...

Director: Tsui Hark. Review: Adam Wing. Judge Dee, or plain Dee to his friends, is China's answer to Sherlock Holmes, and has been immortalized in both the East and West for decades in several novels and TV outings. Though I have to admit, I don’t read that much and this is the first I’ve heard of him. As for veteran Hong Kong director Tsui Hark, now there is a name I’m familiar with, though not so much in the last decade or so it has to be said. In fact, most people had considered the glory days of the Once Upon A Time in China series all but gone, though I am still a big fan of 2000’s Time and Tide, even if anything since then has been pretty much forgettable. Tsui teams up with screenwriter/producer Chen Kuo Fu (The Message, Double Vision) to bring the...

It's been a while since Tsui Hark has produced a real crowd pleaser. Once the absolute top of the heap when it came to action film, his peak period spinning out hits by the fistful as both a producer and a director, the general consensus is that his last really good film was Time And Tide a full decade ago with more recent efforts like Seven Swords and Missing bogging down in overly convoluted plots and uninspired scripts. Looking back over this period - as well as the five year span prior, with the gap between The Blade and Time And Tide also fairly shaky - one other factor becomes apparent. Somewhere along the line Hark seemed to forget that movies are meant to be fun.

Though still over plotted and overly convoluted Hark's latest, Detective Dee And The Mystery of the Phantom Flame, is very definitely fun. This is...

Venice - "Meek's Cutoff," a western with a female point of view from director Kelly Reichardt, was the talk of the Venice Film festival Saturday both because of its unusual take on the tried and true western genre and because actress Michelle Williams, who plays one of the film's protagonists, had paparazzi flashbulbs popping when she showed up in a pale Jason Wu silk chiffon embroidered gown.

Also on Sunday, the festival featured the in-competition world premieres of "Di Renjie" (Detective Dee) from Tsui Hark and Pablo Larrain's "Post Mortem."

Observers said Williams' chic look injected a bolt of glamour into the festival that has been short on it this year, at least compared to normal Venice standards. And the film itself, which screened in the festival's main Sala Grande venue, attracted the attention of critics with its innovative storytelling about a group of settlers lost in the Oregon desert...