Deep in the steaming jungle of South America lies the last great hoard of ancient treasure. Shrouded in myth and mystery and guarded by Hell, it's the Treasure of DOOM! This wealthy secret is known to a handful of greedy men - and one woman. A terrifying journey of passion, violence and treacherous skull-duggery. We get about a dozen decapitations, shrunken heads, croc attacks and even one man is hung by his tongue (!?!). But the best moment is when a bound man is ripped apart by an angry mob of crabs (including a Fulci-esque eyeball removal). This film was banned in Iceland!.

Arguably the best film by Joel and Ethan Coen, the 1990 Miller's Crossing stars Gabriel Byrne as Tom, a loyal lieutenant of a crime boss named Leo (Albert Finney) who is in a Prohibition-era turf war with his major rival, Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito). A man of principle, Tom nevertheless is romantically involved with Leo's lover (Marcia Gay Harden), whose screwy brother (John Turturro) escapes a hit ordered by Caspar only to become Tom's problem. Making matters worse, Tom has outstanding gambling debts he can't pay, which keeps him in regular touch with a punishing enforcer. With all the energy the Coens put into their films, and all their focused appreciation of genre conventions and rules, and all their efforts to turn their movies into ironic appreciations of archetypes in American fiction, they never got their formula so right as with Miller's Crossing. With its Hammett-like dialogue and Byzantine plot and moral chaos mitigated by one hero's personal code, the film so transcends its self-scrutiny as a retro-crime thriller that it is a deserved classic in its own right. -Tom Keogh.

Set among the Italian-American community of Manhattan and adapted by Vincent Patrick from his own novel, 1984's The Pope of Greenwich Village just about gets by on its charm. It stars Mickey Rourke as Charlie, a small-time grafter who is on the point of making his big move and breakaway. Unfortunately, the pull of family ties means that he's hampered by his cousin Paulie (Eric Roberts), an ambitious and excitable idiot who manages to cock up absolutely everything he turns his hand to, bringing down Charlie with him every time. After he gets the pair of them sacked from a restaurant, Paulie helps set up a safecracking deal with older hand Kenneth MacMillan. Trouble is, they’re robbing the local mafia boss. Rourke and Roberts' relationship is modelled closely on that of Harvey Keitel and Robert DeNiro in Scorcese's Mean Streets, only without quite the same harrowing consequences. This being the 1980s there's much De Niro-esque methodology, which generally consists of repeating lines at least twice ("Fix your tie! Fix your tie!"). The element of improv sees the film veer off course occasionally, while Darryl Hannah is her usual oddly semi-detached self in the role of Rourke's girlfriend. However, it's Roberts' performance as the exasperating and energetic Paulie which carries the film, with solid support from numerous Goodfellas and Sopranos regulars. On the DVD: The Pope of Greenwich Village arrives on disc in a decent enough but hardly pristine print. [+]

a couple of strippers are kidnapped by thieves in a robbery and action and chaos ensues. also known as HOT TICKET.

The delightful 1979 adventure yarn The Castle of Cagliostro was the first international hit for Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro). Quick-paced, high-spirited and loaded with wit, Cagliostro is a dandy throwback to the caper pictures of the 1960s. International man of mystery Lupin III stumbles back into the picturesque European duchy of Cagliostro with his faithful and gruff sidekick, Jigen. They will encounter, in no particular order, a runaway bride, a magical ring, an evil count with a dastardly plan, an inspector bent on catching Lupin, perilous rooftop chases, hooded guards with superhuman powers, a well-used dungeon, a counterfeiting scheme, and an ancient mystery promising grand treasure. Lupin deploys an array of Bond-type gadgets, razor-sharp wit, and a surprise up both his sleeves. Despite the hail of bullets, this caper is great fun, never taking itself seriously. Miyazaki's career illustrates how limiting the term animé can be for these films; there are hardly more than 10 live-action films of this genre as entertaining. Far less mean than Hollywood fare, it nevertheless is for ages nine and up since it contains adult-orientated language and gunplay. The Lupin character has been featured in other animé films, but never as successfully or with as much fun as in Miyazaki's. The new English-language dubbing is excellent to boot. [+]

In The Desert Ratshis second Hollywood role-between Oscar-nominated turns in My Cousin Rachel and The Robe-Richard Burton stars as a Scottish commando put in charge of a battalion of the Ninth Australian Division defending Tobruk. The Aussies don't like him, and with a year of grim North African duty already under his belt, he's not too crazy about his new responsibilities either. The outfit is charged with staving off the battering assaults of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel for two months to give the British Army time to regroup in Cairo and prepare for a counterattack. In the end, the "Desert Rats" play hell with the Desert Fox for 242 days, during which they and their commander develop some mutual respect. This is a solid, workmanlike World War Two picture that, having been made in 1953 rather than 1943, can acknowledge a degree of eccentric humanity and soldierly professionalism in the enemy. Featured guest star James Mason reprises his Rommel from The Desert Fox (1951)-playing all his scenes in German except for a scene of ironical repartee with Burton. Another distinguished Brit, Robert Newton, gets co-star billing as a boozy, self-confessed coward who used to be Burton's schoolmaster once upon a time. However, a goodly number of Australians-including Chips Rafferty and Charles "Bud" Tingwell (still going strong nearly 50 years later in Paul Cox's wonderful Innocence)-rate as much screentime. Robert Wise directed, with a trimness that reminds us he started out as an editor, and Lucien Ballard provides the pungent black-and-white cinematography. -Richard T Jameson, Amazon. [+]

Buster Keaton's career reached its creative apex with this rousing comic adventure. Not merely one of the finest silent films, this remains one of the great film comedies of all time. The Great Stone Face stars as Southern railroad engineer Johnny Gray, a man with only two loves: the sweet Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) and his trustworthy engine, the eponymous General. When Fort Sumner is fired upon he is one of the first to enlist, but when the war office rejects him (he's too valuable as a trained engineer) his sweetie rejects him as a coward. Johnny has the opportunity to prove his bravery when Yankee spies steal his engine and inadvertently kidnap Annabelle, and Johnny pursues with all the resources at his disposal: handcar, bicycle and finally railroad engine. Keaton's love/hate relationship with technology and machinery shines as he becomes one with his beloved locomotive and wrestles with a finicky cannon that threatens to blow his engine off the tracks; with tremendous dexterity, he nails the humour with inimitably deadpan takes. Spunky Marion Mack makes a perfect partner for Keaton, not merely a foil but a gifted comedienne in her own right. Other Keaton films contain more laughs and inspired comic stunts, but none combines romance, adventure and comedy into a solid story as seamlessly as this silent masterpiece. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Martin Scorsese's 1990 masterpiece GoodFellas immortalises the hilarious, horrifying life of actual gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), from his teen years on the streets of New York to his anonymous exile under the Witness Protection Program. The director's kinetic style is perfect for recounting Hill's ruthless rise to power in the 1950s as well as his drugged-out fall in the late 1970s; in fact, no one has ever rendered the mental dislocation of cocaine better than Scorsese. Scorsese uses period music perfectly, not just to summon a particular time but to set a precise mood. GoodFellas is at least as good as The Godfather without being in the least derivative of it. Joe Pesci's psycho improvisation of Mobster Tommy DeVito ignited Pesci as a star, Lorraine Bracco scores the performance of her life as the love of Hill's life, and every supporting role, from Paul Sorvino to Robert De Niro, is a miracle. Given the number of truly great Mafia movies over the years it would be a brave soul who classed GoodFellas as the best. But surely we can all agree that it is, at the very least, first among equals. Martin Scorsese took the factual details of mobster Henry Hill's life, as written by author Nicholas Pileggi, and turned it into a cinematic experience that has burnt itself indelibly into the consciousness of every viewer, and which now forms a touchstone in the lexicon of film and TV-making (what is The Sopranos if not GoodFellas: The Soap?) For aficionados it's a virtuoso exercise in filmmaking, showcasing remarkable and innovative use of steadicam shots, freeze-frame, voice-over narration, editing and incidental music (you'll never be able to listen to "Layla" the same way again). Every would-be hotshot director from Quentin Tarantino to Doug Liman to Jon Favreau has paid homage to it. But above all that, it's an extraordinarily visceral, gripping and thoroughly enjoyable piece of storytelling as we witness the glory days of organised crime from the protagonist's viewpoint; then, abruptly after one bloody murder too far, we see him decline in a spiral of drugs, violence and paranoia. [+]