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Review Entertainment in Video / The Libertine [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • John Malkovich
  • Samantha Morton
  • Johnny Depp
  • Johnny Vegas
  • Shane MacGowan
  • Laurence Dunmore
Release date: 2006-05-08
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.75

Review The Libertine [2005] / Entertainment in Video:

The beautifully sculpted face of Johnny Depp fits right in with this masterpiece of design. The Libertine-filmed in a grainy, color-muted chiaroscuro-captures the lush costumes, extravagant decor, and remarkable filth of Restoration England. John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester (Depp), warns the audience at the very beginning of the film that they will not like him. From there, he treats his wife cruelly, drinks to relentless excess, abuses his friendships, and generally wallows in dissipation, much to the dismay of King Charles II (John Malkovich, Dangerous Liaisons), who hopes that Rochester will write a play glorifying his reign. But Rochester finds his true inspiration (and the movie comes to life) when he sees a young actress named Lizzie Barry (Samantha Morton, Minority Report, Morvern Callar). Rochester sets out to make her the greatest actress of their time-and she, with some reluctance, submits to his teaching. The weakness of The Libertine is not that Rochester is unlikable; it's that he doesn't want to do anything. Barry galvanizes the movie because she burns with ambition, but Rochester's only apparent aim in life is an agonizingly slow self-destruction. Still, The Libertine has lurid Saturnalian visions, Morton is superb, Malkovich gives a typically insidious turn, and Depp, as always, finds moments of sad poetry in the bitterest of speeches. -Bret Fetzer.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Bleak House - BBC (3 Disc Special Edition) [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Susanna White
  • Liza Tarbuck
  • Patrick Kennedy
  • Denis Lawson
  • Justin Chadwick
  • Gillian Anderson
  • Natalie Press
Release date: 2006-11-13
Run time: 480 min.
Creator: Charles Dickens
RRP: £29.99
Price: £11.00

Review Bleak House - BBC (3 Disc Special Edition) [2005] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Mansfield Park [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Hannah Taylor-Gordon
  • Bruce Byron
  • Patricia Rozema
  • Talya Gordon
  • James Purefoy
  • Lindsay Duncan
Release date: 2006-06-15
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £2.99

Review Mansfield Park [2000] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Patricia Rozema is a Canadian director with the nerve to helm smart, big budget movies, as she proves again in Mansfield Park. She had her first hit with the quirky I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987) in which the heroine, a mouse among art gallery sharks, eventually comes into her own, surpassing the mentor who's risen on her back. Similarly, in Mansfield Park, adapted from Jane Austen's strongly autobiographical novel, penniless city mouse Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor) comes to live in a handsome country manor with the Bertrams, her heartless, class-conscious relations. After many cruel setbacks, Fanny manages, by dint of writing talent and moral integrity, to win the day and the love of her life Edmund (Trainspotting's Jonny Lee Miller). Unlike filmmakers who dress up Austen's money-driven world in sweetness and light, Rozema rubs our noses in the fact that the Bertrams' wealth flows from the blood and sweat of faraway slaves. The adaptation never euphemises the down-and-dirty slum life which has swallowed up Fanny's mother and threatens Fanny if she refuses to marry the handsome but hollow fortune hunter (Alessandro Nivola) chosen for her by her benefactors. Playwright Harold Pinter is compelling as Mansfield Park's patriarch, Sir Thomas Bertram, capable of kindness but stone-cold when his aristocratic will is crossed. Embeth Davidtz (playing Mary, the amoral sibling of Fanny's suitor, with wonderfully seductive verve) and O'Connor almost resemble each other-and they are sisters of a sort, each vying, according to her talents, in a stock market where women must parlay sex to stay alive. In this entertaining ride in the socioeconomic fast lane circa 1806, Jane Austen comes across as a full-blooded proto-feminist with savvy charm. -Kathleen Murphy, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review Warner Home Video / Gone With The Wind (4 Disc Collector's Edition Box Set) [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • Olivia de Havilland
  • Leslie Howard
  • Clark Gable
  • Vivien Leigh
  • Hattie McDaniel
  • Victor Fleming
Release date: 2005-02-07
Run time: 224 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £6.79

Review Gone With The Wind (4 Disc Collector's Edition Box Set) [1939] / Warner Home Video:

First off, if you're a GwtW fanatic, you must buy this four-disc collection. But then again, you probably don't need to read this to make that decision. For the rest of us, know that the kitchen-sink approach has been established here with two full discs of extras. The film's restoration under Warner's brilliant Ultra-Resolution process is the major contribution to the set. However, the bare-bones version released years ago isn't bad and the film still doesn't pop off the screen as do films from the headier days of Technicolor (like the earlier Ultra-Resolution DVD release of Meet Me in St. Louis). That said, the set is worthy of the most popular movie ever made. Rudy Behlmer's feature-length commentary is dry but an exhaustive reference guide to the entire history of the film. Need more? There's the excellent full-length documentary The Making of a Legend (1989) narrated by Christopher Plummer, plus two hour-long older biographies on the two main stars. There are many new vignettes on the rest of the cast, all narrated by Plummer (a nice touch to tie everything together). [+]
The new 30-minute interview/reminisce with Oliva de Havilland will be interesting to older fans, but tiresome for the younger set. The usual sort of trailers and premiere footage is here along with a curious short ("The Old South", directed by Fred Zinnemann) that was produced to help introduce the world to the history of the South. -Doug Thomas.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The Charles Dickens BBC Collection: The Pickwick Papers / Oliver Twist / A Christmas Carol / Martin Chuzzlewit / David Copperfield / Tale Of Two Cities / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Scofield
  • Charlotte Rampling
  • Michael Hordern
  • Maggie Smith
  • Ian McKellen
Release date: 2005-10-24
RRP: £99.99
Price: £44.99

Review The Charles Dickens BBC Collection: The Pickwick Papers / Oliver Twist / A Christmas Carol / Martin Chuzzlewit / David Copperfield / Tale Of Two Cities / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Vanity Fair [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Reese Witherspoon
  • Gabriel Byrne
  • Mira Nair
  • Romola Garai
  • Eileen Atkins
  • Jim Broadbent
Release date: 2005-05-16
Run time: 141 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.37

Review Vanity Fair [2004] / Universal Pictures UK:

The corsets and high waists of the 19th century meet the lush colors and visual splendor of India in Vanity Fair, a classic novel translated into modern celluloid by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding). The very contemporary Reese Witherspoon (Legally Blonde, Election) at first seems to hit the wrong note as Becky Sharp, an orphaned girl who rises to the heights of society using her quick wits and feminine wiles. But as Vanity Fair unfolds, the movie's tone embraces both period decor and modern attitudes, searching for a bridge that will carry us more deeply into a different time. It isn't wholly successful-the movie's end wraps things up awkwardly-but some scenes achieve a surprising and vivid immediacy, in particular one in which Becky's gambler husband (elegant James Purefoy) catalogues his worth for her before going off to the Napoleonic battlefields; love and pragmatism fuse with heartbreaking results. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Casanova [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Jeremy Irons
  • Sienna Miller
  • Lasse Hallstrom
  • Oliver Platt
  • Heath Ledger
  • Stephen Greif
Release date: 2006-06-19
Run time: 112 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £1.97

Review Casanova [2005] / Buena Vista Home Entertainment:

A light farce dressed up as a lush 18th century costume drama, Casanova gives a fictional spin to the exploits of history's most rakish seducer of women. As played by Heath Ledger, this Casanova bears no resemblance to Donald Sutherland's unrepentant portrayal in Fellini's Casanova, filmed 30 years earlier. Instead, the great ladies' man of Venice is just biding time by bedding women, waiting for true love (and the return his long-absent mother) to settle down into blissful monogamy. He finds true love in Francesca (Sienna Miller), a feminist who initially resists Casanova's affections while director Lasse Hallström serves up a variety of lightweight subplots including Casanova's flight from the Vatican's inquisitor (Jeremy Irons); a host of mistaken identities involving, among others, the portly "Lard King of Genoa" (played with scene-stealing perfection by Oliver Platt in a blubbery fat suit); and the romantic negotiations of Francesca's mother (played by Hallström's wife, Lena Olin) and a young bumbler named Giovanni with his own promising future as a lover of women. It all adds up to a good-looking and harmless diversion that barely warrants an R-rating, and it makes a fine double-bill with the more enjoyable Dangerous Beauty, another Venetian lover's tale that was also blessed by the presence of Platt, who gives this Casanova the majority of its entertainment value. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Warner Home Video / Dangerous Liaisons [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Michelle Pfeiffer
  • Swoosie Kurtz
  • Stephen Frears
  • Glenn Close
  • John Malkovich
  • Keanu Reeves
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 115 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £3.22

Review Dangerous Liaisons [1988] / Warner Home Video:

A sumptuously mounted and photographed celebration of artful wickedness, betrayal and sexual intrigue among depraved 18th-century French aristocrats, Dangerous Liaisons (based on Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses) is seductively decadent fun. The villainous heroes are the Marquise De Merteuil (Glenn Close) and the Vicomte De Valmont (John Malkovich), who have cultivated their mutual cynicism into a highly developed and exquisitely mannered form of (in-)human expression. Former lovers, they now fancy themselves rather like demigods whose mutual desires have evolved beyond the crudeness of sex or emotion. They ritualistically act out their twisted affections by engaging in elaborate conspiracies to destroy the lives of their less calculating acquaintances, daring each other to ever-more-dastardly acts of manipulation and betrayal. Why? Just because they can; it's their perverted way of getting their kicks in a dead-end, pre-Revolutionary culture. Among their voluptuous and virtuous prey are fair-haired angels played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman, who have never looked more ripe for ravishing. When the Vicomte finds himself beset by bewilderingly genuine emotions for one of his victims, the Marquise considers it the ultimate betrayal and plots her heartless revenge. Dangerous Liaisons is a high-mannered revel for the actors, who also include Swoosie Kurtz, Mildred Natwick, and Keanu Reeves. -Jim Emerson.

Review Warner Home Video / Death In Venice [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Burns
  • Luchino Visconti
  • Bjorn Andresen
  • Dirk Bogarde
  • Silvana Mangano
  • Marisa Berenson
Release date: 2006-06-01
Run time: 125 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £4.98

Review Death In Venice [1971] / Warner Home Video:

Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann story Death in Venice is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the centre of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms, Death in Venice creates a lushness rare in movies. -Robert Horton.

Review MGM Entertainment / Wuthering Heights [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • Donald Crisp
  • Merle Oberon
  • Laurence Olivier
  • William Wyler
  • Flora Robson
  • David Niven
Release date: 2004-07-05
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.99

Review Wuthering Heights [1939] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Far From The Madding Crowd [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Alan Bates
  • Julie Christie
  • John Schlesinger
  • Terence Stamp
  • Peter Finch
Release date: 2008-08-25
Run time: 155 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.98

Review Far From The Madding Crowd [1967] / Optimum Home Entertainment:


Review ITV DVD / The Jane Austen ITV Collection - Mansfield Park / Northanger Abbey / Emma (3 Disc Box Set) [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • William Beck
  • Kate Beckinsale
  • Diarmuid Lawrence
  • Samantha Morton
  • Liam Cunningham
  • Billie Piper
Release date: 2007-03-26
Run time: 347 min.
RRP: £39.99
Price: £14.55

Review The Jane Austen ITV Collection - Mansfield Park / Northanger Abbey / Emma (3 Disc Box Set) [2007] / ITV DVD:


Review Tartan Video / The Twilight Samurai [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Hiroyuki Sanada
  • Yoji Yamada
  • Nenji Kobayashi
  • Ren Osugi
  • Rie Miyazawa
  • Mitsuru Fukikoshi
Release date: 2004-11-22
Run time: 125 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £5.97

Review The Twilight Samurai [2004] / Tartan Video:


Review Uca / Tess [1979]
Actors & Directors
  • Arielle Dombasle
  • Leigh Lawson
  • Roman Polanski
  • Peter Firth
  • Nastassja Kinski
  • Carolyn Pickles
Release date: 2007-12-10
Run time: 164 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.34

Review Tess [1979] / Uca:


Review Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK / Marie Antoinette [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Jason Schwartzmann
  • Judy Davis
  • Kirsten Dunst
  • Rip Torn
  • Rose Byrne
Release date: 2007-02-26
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.69

Review Marie Antoinette [2006] / Sony Pictures Home Ent. UK:

While much was made of the fact that Marie Antoinette elicited boos at Cannes, the many favorable reviews attracted less attention. Inspired by Antonia Fraser's biography, Sofia Coppola fashions a portrait that's just as dreamy as The Virgin Suicides, her first literary adaptation, and the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation. Set to a soundtrack of post-punk (a conceit that adds more interest than resonance), the teenaged Marie (Kirsten Dunst, quite good) may be shallow, but she's rarely unsympathetic. The story begins in the late-18th century as the Austrian Archduchess agrees to marry Louis-Auguste (Jason Schwartzman). After bidding adieu to her mother, Maria Theresa (Marianne Faithfull), she travels to France, where King Louis XV (Rip Torn) sets the rules-and the list is endless (Judy Davis' Comtesse de Noailles is the primary enforcer). As for the Dauphin, he's just a boy, really, with more interest in his key collection than their marriage bed. Should Marie produce an heir, it might be enough to sustain her-since life is nothing but an endless shopping spree-but clouds gather on the horizon as an impoverished populace rises up against their extravagant leaders. Coppola merely suggests what happens next, although history paints a darker picture. Filmed in and around the Chateau of Versailles, Marie Antoinette is a riot of rustling gowns, sparkling jewels, and Manolo Blahnik-designed shoes. To say that style trumps substance does its maker a disservice, but the look of the thing does leave the deepest impression. [+]
-Kathleen C. Fennessy.

Review 2 Entertain Video / I Claudius - Complete BBC Series (5 Disc Box Set) [1976]
Actors & Directors
  • John Hurt
  • Brian Blessed
  • Derek Jacobi
  • Siân Phillips
  • George Baker
Release date: 2002-09-30
Run time: 648 min.
RRP: £44.99
Price: £19.99

Review I Claudius - Complete BBC Series (5 Disc Box Set) [1976] / 2 Entertain Video:

A truly epic saga of dynastic conflict at the heart of Imperial Rome, I Claudius was the landmark BBC drama series of the 1970s. Originally transmitted as 13 50-minute episodes, it is now available as two double video packs. After chronicling the foundations of the British Empire in Elizabeth R (1971), the BBC chose to dramatise the human face of ancient Rome as interpreted by Robert Graves in his two enormously complex novels, I Claudius and Claudius The God. Derek Jacobi gives one of the greatest television performances ever as Claudius, the appalled chronicler of the decadence, corruption, intrigue and carnage which comes with absolute power of his ruling family. Augustus (Brian Blessed) is Emperor and Sian Phillips, Livia, his scheming, ambitious wife, Claudius' aunt. By virtue of his stammer and uncontrollable twitches, Claudius passes for a fool, thus escaping the poisonous machinations of Livia, all the while recording the comings and goings of the Imperial household. Inevitably lacking the visual scale of cinematic features Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960), and today looking more studio-bound than ever, I Claudius remains a television masterpiece of intelligently written and rivetingly intense character drama. The saga ends with I Claudius - Part 2. -Gary S. Dalkin A truly epic saga of dynastic conflict at the heart of Imperial Rome, I Claudius was the landmark BBC drama series of the 1970s. [+]
Originally transmitted as 13 50-minute episodes, the series dramatises the human face of ancient Rome as interpreted by Robert Graves in his two enormously complex novels, I, Claudius and Claudius The God. Derek Jacobi gives one of the greatest television performances ever as Claudius, the appalled chronicler of the decadence, corruption, intrigue and carnage which comes with the absolute power of his ruling family. Augustus (Brian Blessed) is Emperor and Livia (Sian Phillips) his scheming, ambitious wife, Claudius's aunt. By virtue of his stammer and uncontrollable twitches, Claudius passes for a fool, thus escaping the poisonous machinations of Livia, all the while recording the comings and goings of the Imperial household. Events become increasingly frenzied as Caligula (John Hurt playing the tyrant with psychotic fury) bloodily slaughters his way to power, making a senator of his favourite horse along the way. Claudius eventually becomes Emperor himself, and Jacobi is simply magnificent in the intensely moving finale, which is not to overlook the rest of a fine cast, including: George Baker; Ian Ogilvy; Christopher Guard; Stratford Johns; John Rhys-Davies; Bernard Hepton and Patrick Stewart as the murderous Praetorian Guard Captain Sejanus. Inevitably lacking the visual scale of cinematic features such as Ben-Hur, and today looking more studio-bound than ever, I, Claudius remains a television masterpiece of intelligently written and rivetingly intense character drama. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The Oscar Wilde BBC Collection : The Importance Of Being Earnest / The Picture Of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan (3 Disc Box Set)
Actors & Directors
  • Stuart Burge
  • Joan Plowright
  • John Gorrie
  • John Gielgud
  • Jeremy Brett
  • Susan Hampshire
  • Rudolph Cartier
  • Tony Smith
  • Rupert Frazer
Release date: 2005-05-30
Run time: 465 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £9.96

Review The Oscar Wilde BBC Collection : The Importance Of Being Earnest / The Picture Of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan (3 Disc Box Set) / 2 Entertain Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Crucible [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Daniel Day-Lewis
  • Winona Ryder
  • Nicholas Hytner
  • Bruce Davison
  • Joan Allen
  • Paul Scofield
Release date: 2004-04-19
Run time: 118 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.69

Review The Crucible [1997] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

The Salem witch hunts are given a new and nasty perspective when a vengeful teenage girl uses superstition and repression to her advantage, creating a killing machine that becomes a force unto itself. Pulsating with seductive energy, this provocative drama is as visually arresting as it is intellectually engrossing. Arthur Miller based his classic 1953 play on the actual Salem witch trials of 1692, creating what has since become a durable fixture of school drama courses. It may look like a historical drama but Miller also meant the work as a parable for the misery created by the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings of the 1950s. This searing version of his drama delves into matters of conscience with concise accuracy and emotional honesty. Three passionate cheers for Miller, director Nicholas Hytner and costars Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. -Rochelle O'Gorman.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Pam Ferris
  • Beatie Edney
  • Toby Stephens
  • Tara Fitzgerald
  • Mike Barker
  • Rupert Graves
Release date: 2006-03-13
Run time: 159 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £4.00

Review The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall [1996] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Acorn Media UK Ltd / Lilies : Complete BBC Series 1 [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • David Moore
  • Brain McCardie
  • Kerrie Hayes
  • Leanne Rowe
  • Catherine Tyldesley
Release date: 2007-04-16
Run time: 468 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £9.92

Review Lilies : Complete BBC Series 1 [2007] / Acorn Media UK Ltd:

Set in the aftermath of the first World War, Lillies is a quality period drama that centres on the activities of the Moss family. It's also, seemingly, a show that's been brought to an end after just one compelling series. Living in 1920s Liverpool, the Moss family consists of three girls-Iris, May and Ruby-and one boy, Billy. Trying to keep them in order is their father, following the death of their mother. The three girls, at the behest of their mother, are Catholics, and it's they that Lillies concentrates the best of its time upon. At times not an easy watch courtesy of a fairly uncompromising approach, Lillies is nonetheless a superior piece of drama, and one that's brought together in this welcome and thoughtful three-DVD collection. Across the episodes of the series, the strength of family bond comes across as paramount, but there are still some bitter lows that the Moss' have to tackle. And thanks to a talented cast, it's rewarding to follow their antics and adventures. It'd be a pity if, as it seems, the BBC don't commission another series of Lillies, because there really is a lot to enjoy on the evidence of this debut season alone. If this, though, is to be it, then at least fans of the show, and those who missed it first time around, get a strong DVD set to enjoy. [+]
A consolation, certainly, but a good consolation nonetheless. -Jon Foster.

Models & Brands:
The Libertine [2005], Bleak House - BBC (3 Disc Special Edition) [2005], Mansfield Park [2000], Gone With The Wind (4 Disc Collector's Edition Box Set) [1939], The Charles Dickens BBC Collection: The Pickwick Papers / Oliver Twist / A Christmas Carol / Martin Chuzzlewit / David Copperfield / Tale Of Two Cities / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend, Vanity Fair [2004], Casanova [2005], Dangerous Liaisons [1988], Death In Venice [1971], Wuthering Heights [1939], Far From The Madding Crowd [1967], The Jane Austen ITV Collection - Mansfield Park / Northanger Abbey / Emma (3 Disc Box Set) [2007], The Twilight Samurai [2004], Tess [1979], Marie Antoinette [2006], I Claudius - Complete BBC Series (5 Disc Box Set) [1976], The Oscar Wilde BBC Collection : The Importance Of Being Earnest / The Picture Of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan (3 Disc Box Set), The Crucible [1997], The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall [1996], Lilies : Complete BBC Series 1 [2007]

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