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Review ITV DVD / The Red Shoes - Plus Documentary [1948]
Actors & Directors
  • Marius Goring
  • Michael Powell
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Moira Shearer
  • Anton Walbrook
  • Gordon Littmann
  • Jean Short
Release date: 2001-05-21
Run time: 133 min.
Creator: Keith Winter
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.22

Review The Red Shoes - Plus Documentary [1948] / ITV DVD:

Overall, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1948 tale of the tragic ballerina Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) is not in the top drawer of their achievements. The backstage wranglings offer insufficient scope for their usual cinematic vision (though the Monte Carlo scenes are prettily sumptuous). Page's central dilemma, meanwhile, is a bit on the trite side-she must choose between love for a young composer and her career under stern taskmaster Boris Lertomov (Anton Walbrook), the ballet company impresario. The climax is also risibly melodramatic, a rare fumble for Powell and Pressburger. That said, The Red Shoes is worth purchasing alone for its middle sequence, a fantasy cinematic setting of the ballet of The Red Shoes, based on the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a girl who dances herself to death. A superb score by Brian Easdale is matched by an impossibly elaborate, shifting backdrop in which all of Powell and Pressburger's sense of drama, colour, invention and the super-real is encapsulated in one small but intensely concentrated dose. While the rest of the film is relatively dispensable, the ballet scene bears up to repeated rewindings. -David Stubbs Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's most celebrated Technicolor fairy-tale, The Red Shoes is both metaphor and melodrama of unparalleled boldness. So extravagantly theatrical a movie was regarded as simply unreleasable by the Rank Organisation back in 1948, but in spite of their attempted suppression it has long since been acknowledged as one of British cinema's landmark achievements. Not only were Powell and Pressburger unorthodox enough to populate the cast with real ballet dancers (including the radiant Moira Shearer in the pivotal role), they built the whole film around an extraordinarily daring 17-minute ballet sequence in which the camera moves from outside the proscenium arch into a subjective whirl of impressionistic images inspired and informed by Brian Easdale's marvellous score. [+]
Only after seeing this, so the story goes, was Gene Kelly able to see how he could make An American in Paris. The melodramatic plot, metaphorically acted out in the "Red Shoes Ballet" then re-enacted for real by the main characters, presents Great Art as something worth dying for, and, in the person of Anton Walbrook's Lermontov, gives us a portrait of the artist as a man for whom anything and everything is worth sacrificing in its pursuit. Loosely based on Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballets Russes, Walbrook's magnetic central performance is of sufficient stature to conceal the rather trite predicament of his ballerina protégée, and the film's contrived, over-the-top tragic ending. On the DVD: Sadly for a film in which music is such a central element, the advertised digital remastering doesn't seem to have extended to the mono soundtrack, which shows its age quite badly. The colour print, however, looks very vibrant. This special edition also includes a new 25-minute "making-of" feature with a few comments from crew members (or their relatives) and admirers of the film, including ballerina Darcey Bussell. "The Ballet of the Red Shoes" can be seen on its own in a separate featurette, and there are text biographies and a trailer. -Mark Walker.

Review Uca / Gandhi [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Edward Fox
  • Candice Bergen
  • Ben Kingsley
  • John Gielgud
  • Trevor Howard
  • Richard Attenborough
Release date: 2007-05-21
Run time: 180 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £7.32

Review Gandhi [1982] / Uca:


Review Warner Home Video / Nip/Tuck - Series 1 (Box Set) [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Dylan Walsh|Julian McMahon
Release date: 2004-09-20
Run time: 546 min.
RRP: £50.99
Price: £13.98

Review Nip/Tuck - Series 1 (Box Set) [2004] / Warner Home Video:

The turbulent lives of two handsome and high-priced Miami plastic surgeons may be one of the more unusual premises for a television series, but the FX Channel's Nip/Tuck combines sudsy sex and biting wit with the emotional quandaries involved in body modification in a way that makes for an engrossing-and occasionally gross-hourlong drama. The show benefits greatly from its two leads-Dylan Walsh as the troubled "good" surgeon and Julian McMahon as his predatory (but equally troubled) "bad" partner-as well as Joely Richardson as Walsh's wife and Roma Maffia as the surgeons' nurse. If Nip/Tuck does have a stumbling point, it's in its occasionally glib dialogue (series creator Ryan Murphy was a writer for the verbally flashy high school series Popular), which can clash with an episode's more dramatic and poignant moments. The show also doesn't shy away from showing the more gruesome aspects of plastic surgery, but viewers can often see more stomach-churning images on the top-rated CSI. But the strength of the performances and the originality of the premise make these rough spots manageable for viewers looking for an interesting spin on the usual "doctor show. " The five-DVD set offers an extended version of the pilot and all 12 episodes of the first season as well as a trio of documentaries (one on the show itself, another on its special effects, and a third, "Realistic Expectations," on real-life plastic surgeons). A gag reel (amusingly titled "Severed Parts"), a selection of deleted scenes for most episodes, and a music video for the title theme ("A Perfect Lie" by the Engine Room) round out the box. -Paul Gaita.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Crossroads [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Ralph Macchio
  • Robert Judd
  • Joe Morton
  • Joe Seneca
  • Jami Gertz
  • Walter Hill
Release date: 2007-10-01
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.24

Review Crossroads [1986] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Eugene Martone (Ralph Macchio) struggles with the devil and his destiny when he goes down to the Crossroads in this contemporary drama. With a potent blend of adventure, romance and music, the film takes gifted Martone into a dangerous and challenging new world. Obsessed with unlocking the mysteries of the blues, the fledging musicians finds cantankerous Willie Brown (Joe Seneca), a master of the blues harmonica, and frees him from prison. The unlikely duo hobos from New York to Mississipi as Martone searches for fame and Brown tries to break a contract he signed years ago with the devil.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Boys Don't Cry [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Brendan Sexton III
  • Kimberly Peirce
  • Chloë Sevigny
  • Alicia Goranson
  • Hilary Swank
  • Peter Sarsgaard
Release date: 2002-03-04
Run time: 118 min.
Creator: Andy Bienen
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.87

Review Boys Don't Cry [2000] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

When Brandon Teena, a young man with an infectious, aw-shucks grin and an angelic face that's all angles, wanders into Falls City, Nebraska, he takes to the town as if it's a second skin. In little time he's fallen in with a gang of goofy if temperamental redneck boys, found himself a girlfriend, and befriended enough people to form something of a small family. In fact, it's the best time Brandon's ever had. However, there are shadows looming over Brandon's life: a court date for grand theft auto, a chequered criminal record, and a seemingly innocuous speeding ticket that could prove to be his undoing. Why? Because as it turns out, Brandon Teena is actually Teena Brandon, a woman masquerading as a man. This fascinating story was based on real-life events (as documented in The Brandon Teena Story) that occurred in 1993 and ended in tragedy: Brandon's rape and murder by two of his supposed friends. Despite this horrible outcome, however, in the hands of director Kimberly Peirce (who co-wrote the unfettered screenplay with Andy Bienen), Brandon's story becomes not oppressive or preachy, but rather oddly and touchingly transcendent, anchored by Hilary Swank's phenomenal, unsentimental (and Oscar-winning) performance. Swank inhabits Brandon's contradictions and passions with a natural vitality most actresses would refuse to give themselves over to. Brandon's deception is doomed from the start, but Swank's enthusiasm is infectious, and when Brandon starts romancing the sloe-eyed Lana (a pitch-perfect Chloë Sevigny), he finds a soulmate who wants to transcend boundaries and fated identities as much as he does. The last part of the film, when Brandon's true identity is discovered, is truly painful to watch, but in between the agony there are touching moments of sweetness between Brandon and Lana, who wrestles with the truth of who Brandon actually is. [+]
You'll come away from Boys Don't Cry with affection and respect for Brandon, not pity. -Mark Englehart, Amazon. com.

Review Sony Pictures Home Entertainment / Across the Universe [Blu-ray] [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Joe Anderson
  • Jim Sturgess
  • Evan Rachel Wood
  • Julie Taymor
  • Salma Hayek
  • Eddie Izzard
Release date: 2008-02-11
Run time: 129 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £9.97

Review Across the Universe [Blu-ray] [2007] / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment:

Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess, Salma Hayek, Eddie Izzard Set in America during the Vietnam War, Across the Universe is a powerful love story set against a backdrop of political and social unrest. It's a story of soul-searching, self-doubt, and individual powerlessness cleverly conveyed through a multitude of Beatles songs. Like young adults all across America during the 1960's, Jude (Jim Sturgess), Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), Max (Joe Anderson), Sadie (Dana Fuchs), Prudence (T. V. Carpio), and JoJo (Martin Luther) are in turmoil over the war; questioning their individual roles in the war effort and struggling to find a way to hold true to their beliefs while making a difference in the world. While love proves a powerful uniting force, its limitations become clear as relationships are strained and broken over individual perceptions of responsibility to cause and country. A fairly bizarre juxtaposition of extremely stylized, almost hallucinogenic scenes of swirling colours and reflections, highly choreographed dance segments, seemingly commonplace character interaction, and emotionally packed close-up footage of characters lost in contemplative song, this film imparts a good sense of the confusion and passion of the time and is at once powerful, invigorating, and disturbing. The film runs a bit long at 2 hours 11 minutes and several segments drag noticeably, thanks to some incredibly slow song tempos. Warning: this production may change how you think about a favourite Beatles song forever. -Tami Horiuchi.

Review Entertainment in Video / Lucky Number Slevin [Blu-ray] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Shira Leigh
  • Sam Jaeger
  • Dorian Missick
  • Victorio Fodor
  • Bruce Willis
  • Paul McGuigan
Release date: 2007-08-13
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £9.74

Review Lucky Number Slevin [Blu-ray] [2006] / Entertainment in Video:

Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci, Rick Bramucci, Kevin Chamberlin, Oliver Davis, Victorio Fodor, Sam Jaeger, Dorian Missick, Shira Leigh, Janet Lane

Review Momentum Pictures / Me Without You [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Michelle Williams
  • Sandra Goldbacher
  • Anna Friel
  • Anna Popplewell
  • Ella Jones
  • Cameron Powrie
Release date: 2002-10-14
Run time: 108 min.
Creator: Laurence Coriat
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.93

Review Me Without You [2001] / Momentum Pictures:

Sandra Goldbacher's intense drama of friendship and betrayal Me Without You was not especially liked by UK reviewers, but opened in the US to rave reviews. Carrying the relationship between two teenagers through their student days and into adulthood, it shows the more obviously charismatic Marina (Anna Friel) as parasitic on her more intelligent friend Holly (Michelle Williams) and then utterly devastated when Holly tries to break away (a brief epilogue shows them still involved years later). Best known for her role in Dawson's Creek, Michelle Williams (whose English accent is impeccable) gives a finely nuanced performance; Anne Friel runs the gamut from drug-induced stupor to malice to hysteria with a staginess that is only partly the character's. There are solid performances from Trudy Stiler as the neurotic ex-croupier mother who is part of Marina's problem and Kyle McLachlan as the oddly passive lecturer whom both seduce. The film is good on the passage of time-it has a fine eye for the fashion disasters of 1970s to 90s Britain-yet it's somehow disingenuous in its avoidance of emotional subtext. It's overly partial, too: Holly is obviously a stand-in for the writer-director. On the DVD: Me Without Your is presented in a widescreen visual ratio of 2. 35:1 with Dolby 5. 1 digital sound that gives full weight and intensity to a soundtrack which revisits a well-chosen selection of obvious and obscure tracks from the period. It has no extra features. [+]
-Roz Kaveney.

Review Anthea Turner / The Perfect Housewife Series 2 Including Christmas Special [2007]
Release date: 2007-10-01
Run time: 468 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £8.41

Review The Perfect Housewife Series 2 Including Christmas Special [2007] / Anthea Turner:


Review Bfi Video / Caravaggio [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Bean
  • Derek Jarman
  • Tilda Swinton
  • Michael Gough
  • Mark Tildesley
  • Nigel Terry
Release date: 2007-01-29
Run time: 89 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £8.38

Review Caravaggio [1986] / Bfi Video:


Review Warner Home Video / Errol Flynn - Signature Collection Box Set (Dive Bomber, They Died With Their Boots On, The Seahawk, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, Captain Blood)
Actors & Directors
  • Errol Flynn
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Olivia De Havilland
  • Bette Davis
Release date: 2007-01-01
RRP: £44.99
Price: £16.75

Review Errol Flynn - Signature Collection Box Set (Dive Bomber, They Died With Their Boots On, The Seahawk, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, Captain Blood) / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Great Expectations [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Gwyneth Paltrow
  • Chris Cooper
  • Hank Azaria
  • Anne Bancroft
  • Alfonso Cuarón
  • Ethan Hawke
Release date: 2002-02-04
Run time: 107 min.
Creator: Mitch Glazer
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.14

Review Great Expectations [1998] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

The key ingredient in this modern-day version of Charles Dickens's classic is director Alfonso Cuarón, who made the glowing, estimable A Little Princess. If you saw that (and you should), understand that Expectations has those ingredients (great sense of time, place, and timing) but adds modern music and sex appeal; the latter personified by the long-legged Gwyneth Paltrow. Finnegan Bell (Ethan Hawke as an adult, Jeremy James Kissner at age 10) is the new version of Dickens's Pip. He's a child wise beyond his years, befriending an escaped convict (Robert De Niro) in the warm waters of Florida's Gulf Coast. Finn is also the plaything for Estella (Paltrow as an adult, Raquel Beaudene at age 10), the niece of the coast's richest and most eccentric lady, Ms. Dinsmoor (a fun and flamboyant Anne Bancroft). The prudish Estella likes Finn (catch the best first kiss scene in many a moon) but has been brought up to disdain men; she'll break hearts. As the object of Finn's desires, Estella unfortunately is a one-dimensional character, yet what a dimension! Clad in Donna Karan dresses and her long, sun-kissed hair, Paltrow is luminous. She and Hawke make a very sexy couple. Mitch Glazer's script does better by Finn. [+]
He's a blue-collar worker with a gift for drawing (artwork by Francesco Clemente). Following his Uncle Joe's (Chris Cooper) honest ways, Finn grows up as a fisherman, thoughts of Estella and art drifting away in the hard work. When a mysterious benefactor allows him to follow his dream, Finn finds himself in New York, preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime art exhibit-and in the arms of the engaged Estella. Filled with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's golden-drenched light, the film has an irresistible, wildly romantic look. Dinsmoor's place is certainly gothic, Estella and Finn's longing encounters glamorous. Cuarón uses an MTV-friendly soundtrack with a confident touch. Songs by Tori Amos and the band Pulp-along with Patrick Doyle's silky score-create passionate scenes. It all ends far too swiftly with a seemingly tacked-on ending (reflecting the book, as it happens) but the film is splendid storytelling. It's a stylish, sweet valentine. -Doug Thomas.

Review ITV DVD / The African Queen [1951]
Actors & Directors
  • Katharine Hepburn
  • John Huston
  • Peter Bull
  • Humphrey Bogart
  • Theodore Bikel
  • Robert Morley
Release date: 2001-07-16
Run time: 101 min.
Creator: Peter Viertel
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.49

Review The African Queen [1951] / ITV DVD:

The 1951 John Huston classic, set in Africa during World War I, garnered Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain in Africa, who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to finally fall into one another's arms. The African Queen is classic Huston material-part adventure, part quest-but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a longtime collaborator with Huston on such classics as The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo) and Hepburn have never been better, and support from frequent Huston crony Robert Morley (Beat the Devil, also featuring Bogart) adds some extra dimension and colour. -Tom Keogh The African Queen, John Huston's 1951 classic set in Africa during World War I, garnered Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for his role as a hard-drinking riverboat captain who provides passage for a Christian missionary spinster (Katharine Hepburn). Taking an instant, mutual dislike to one another, the two endure rough waters, the presence of German soldiers, and their own bickering to fall finally into one another's arms. Based on CS Forester's novel, this is classic Huston material-part adventure, part quest-but this time with a pair of characters who'd all but given up on happiness. Bogart (a long-time collaborator with Huston on such classics as The Maltese Falcon and Key Largo) and Hepburn have never been better, and support from frequent Huston crony Robert Morley adds some extra dimension and colour. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com On the DVD: A trailer, a gallery of contemporary posters and stills, plus some text biographies of the principals, simply whet the appetite for the main extra feature here: an audio commentary by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. [+]
The man responsible for the lush, albeit studio-bound jungle textures of Black Narcissus faced innumerable challenges lighting real Borneo jungle in the heart of the Congo for Huston's ambitious project, and here he relates all the behind-the-scenes anecdotes of disease, infestation and disaster that plagued the production. It's a real treat to hear one of the last survivors of the Golden Age filmmaking happily reminiscing about one of cinema's classic pictures, talking companionably of Huston, Bogie and Katie Hepburn and what everyone-cast and crew alike-endured to finish the picture, from lepers carrying their gear to the location, Huston fishing while directing, hornets stinging the crew, to terrible sickness brought on by drinking unfiltered lake water (except Bogie and Huston, who stuck religiously to the whisky!). The movie itself, in its original 1. 33:1 ratio, looks just fine, and the sound is an unfussy digitally remastered mono. -Mark Walker.

Review Uca Catalogue / Guess Who's Coming To Dinner [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Katharine Hepburn
  • Cecil Kellaway
  • Sidney Poitier
  • Katharine Houghton
  • Stanley Kramer
  • Spencer Tracy
Release date: 2007-10-01
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.47

Review Guess Who's Coming To Dinner [1967] / Uca Catalogue:

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn (who won the Academy Award as Best Actress for her performance) are unforgettable as perplexed parents in this landmark 1967 movie about mixed marriage. Joanna (Katharine Houghton), the beautiful daughter of a crusading publisher, Matthew Drayton (Tracy), and his patrician wife, Christina (Hepburn), returns home with her new fiancee, John Prentice (Sidney Poitier), a distinguished black doctor. Christina accepts her daughter's decision to marry John, but Matthew is shocked by this interracial union; and the doctor's parents are equally dismayed. Both families must sit down face to face and examine each other's level of intolerance. In Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, director Stanley Kramer has created a masterful study of society's prejudices. - Special Features: Theatrical Trailer - Subtitles (movie only) Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, English,Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.

Review 20th Century Fox / The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Pamela Franklin
  • Robert Stephens
  • Maggie Smith
  • Celia Johnson
  • Gordon Jackson
  • Ronald Neame
Release date: 2004-07-06
Run time: 115 min.
Price: £6.36

Review The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:

Maggie Smith is so witty and commanding in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie that you might forget the script paints Jean Brodie as an ultimately self-deluding spinster. Dame Maggie won the first of her two Oscars for playing a teacher in 1930s Edinburgh more in thrall to her romantic notions of art and beauty than the real world (she exalts the Mona Lisa and Mussolini with equal fervour), a cultivator of worshipping "Brodie Girls". Smith's expert playing makes many of the brogue-heavy Brodie-isms worth memorising ("She seeks to intimidate me by the use of quarter-hours") and raises the picture above its generally theatrical style. Real-life husband Robert Stephens plays Jean's married lover; Celia Johnson excels as the hostile headmistress; and Pamela Franklin is the deadpan whistle-blower within Miss Brodie's coven. The dippy music of Rod McKuen helps mark the movie as more of a reflection of the 1960s than the 30s. -Robert Horton.

Review Pathe Distribution / There's Only One Jimmy Grimble [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Wayne Galtrey
  • John Hay
  • Lewis McKenzie
  • Gina McKee
  • Jane Lapotaire
  • Ben Miller
Release date: 2001-08-13
Run time: 102 min.
Creator: Simon Mayle
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.88

Review There's Only One Jimmy Grimble [2000] / Pathe Distribution:


Review Warner Home Video / Gorillas In The Mist [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Sigourney Weaver
  • John Omirah Miluwi
  • Julie Harris
  • Bryan Brown
  • Michael Apted
  • Iain Cuthbertson
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 124 min.
Creator: Tab Murphy
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.25

Review Gorillas In The Mist [1988] / Warner Home Video:

Sigourney Weaver more than earned her Oscar nomination for Best Actress in Gorillas in the Mist, dominating every frame of Michael Apted's biopic about primatologist Dian Fossey. Tenderly mothering an orphaned gorilla infant or terrorising an African poacher with a staged lynching, the statuesque star is never less than fiercely focused, a glamorous warrior for animal rights. As the amateur scientist who researched and spotlighted Rwanda's endangered mountain gorillas in National Geographic, Weaver is the passionate heart that keeps an otherwise flaccid film alive. Unfortunately, the film's stodgy script and direction simply document Fossey's magnificent obsession, offering no insight into what lonely impulse of the soul led this extraordinary woman to climb up an African mountain to bond so strongly with gorillas. Cardboard characters include an eternally smiling, sexless African soulmate (John Omirah Miluwi), a perfect boyfriend (Bryan Brown) who has to be dumped in favour of gorilla-love, and stereotypical villains. Still, the African scenery is spectacular, and who can resist the cross-species thrill when the huge dark hand of Digit, Fossey's favourite, first rests in her outstretched palm? Gorillas in the Mist will please those who savour Sigourney Weaver's Amazonian fervour and the pure fire of her physical and spiritual passion-and harbour a slightly misanthropic fondness for liaisons between beauties and beasts. -Kathleen Murphy.

Review Contender Entertainment Group / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Movie [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • Michelan Sisti
  • Steve Barron
  • Elias Koteas
  • Judith Hoag
  • Leif Tilden
  • Josh Pais
Release date: 2005-12-26
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Todd W. Langen
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.25

Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Movie [1990] / Contender Entertainment Group:


Review Bfi Video / The Draughtsman's Contract [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Hugh Fraser
  • Neil Cunningham
  • Peter Greenaway
  • Anthony Higgins
  • Janet Suzman
  • Anne-Louise Lambert
Release date: 2004-02-23
Run time: 104 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £11.41

Review The Draughtsman's Contract [1982] / Bfi Video:

"I try very hard never to distort or dissemble," says Mr. Neville (Anthony Higgins), a draughtsman of considerable talent contracted by a certain Mrs Herbert (Janet Suzman) to make 12 drawings for her absent husband of their English estate. Part of that contract involves Mr Neville taking his pleasure with Mrs Herbert. While Mr Neville aims for fidelity in his drawings, infidelity in private is quite another matter. The film becomes a cerebral puzzle when objects start appearing mysteriously in the subjects of Mr Neville's various drawings: a ladder that wasn't there before, a pair of boots standing in a field. Mr Neville's penchant for realism is stymied by these clues, which may or may not suggest the murder of Mr Herbert. Peter Greenaway seems to have directed this, his first art-house success, with the aim of exploring the failings of perspective in art and casting his doubtful eye on the possibility of "faithful" drawings such as those by which Mr. Neville makes his living. Greenaway was, after all, an art student, and must have known that drawing machines like the one Mr Neville uses in the film (which is set in 1694) led not only to the invention of photography, and therefore of film itself, but also to the renouncing of perspective that informs so much of 20th-century painting. In the film, Greenaway overlays the story's mysterious elements with highly mannered tableaux, shooting each scene like a realistic, though sumptuous, painting, while his actors spout witty and complicated sentences, suggesting the falseness of surfaces. [+]
Mr Neville's faith in surface is his downfall, and Greenaway's triumph is in his distortions and dissemblings, the narrative lie that gets closer to the truth than any architectural drawing could. -Jim Gay, Amazon. com.

Review Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK / Capote [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Phillip Seymour Hoffman
  • Allie Mickelson
  • Araby Lockhart
  • Bennett Miller
  • Robert Huculak
  • Marshall Bell
Release date: 2006-07-03
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.99

Review Capote [2005] / Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK:

Bolstered by an Oscar-caliber performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role, Capote ranked highly among the best films of 2005. Written by actor/screenwriter Dan Futterman and based on selected chapters from the biography by Gerald Clarke, this mercilessly perceptive drama shows how Truman Capote brought about his own self-destruction in the course of writing In Cold Blood, the "nonfiction novel" that was immediately acclaimed as a literary milestone. After learning of brutal killings in rural Holcomb, Kansas, in November 1959, Capote gained the confidence of captured killers Perry Smith (Clifton Collins, Jr. ) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino) in an effort to tell their story, but he ultimately sacrificed his soul in the process of writing his greatest book. Hoffman transcends mere mimicry to create an utterly authentic, psychologically tormented portrait of an insincere artist who was not above lying and manipulation to get what he needed. Bennett Miller's intimate direction focuses on the consequences of Capote's literary ambition, tempered by an equally fine performance by Catherine Keener as Harper Lee, Capote's friend and the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, who served as Capote's quiet voice of conscience. Spanning the seven-year period between the Kansas murders and the publication of In Cold Blood in 1966, Capote reveals the many faces of a writer who grew too close to his subjects, losing his moral compass as they were fitted with a hangman's noose. -Jeff Shannon.

Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
The Red Shoes - Plus Documentary [1948], Gandhi [1982], Nip/Tuck - Series 1 (Box Set) [2004], Crossroads [1986], Boys Don't Cry [2000], Across the Universe [Blu-ray] [2007], Lucky Number Slevin [Blu-ray] [2006], Me Without You [2001], The Perfect Housewife Series 2 Including Christmas Special [2007], Caravaggio [1986], Errol Flynn - Signature Collection Box Set (Dive Bomber, They Died With Their Boots On, The Seahawk, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, Captain Blood), Great Expectations [1998], The African Queen [1951], Guess Who's Coming To Dinner [1967], The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie [1969] (REGION 1) (NTSC), There's Only One Jimmy Grimble [2000], Gorillas In The Mist [1988], Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Movie [1990], The Draughtsman's Contract [1982], Capote [2005]

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