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Review Warner Home Video / The Last Samurai [Blu-ray] [2004] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Chad Lindberg
  • Ken Watanabe
  • Edward Zwick
  • Ray Godshall Sr.
  • Tom Cruise
  • William Atherton
Release date: 2006-11-14
Run time: 154 min.
Price: £11.86

Review The Last Samurai [Blu-ray] [2004] [US Import] / Warner Home Video:

The Last Samurai gives epic sweep to an intimate story of cultures at a crossroads as Japan undergoes tumultuous transition to a more Westernised society in 1876-77. In America, tormented Civil War veteran Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is coerced by a mercenary officer (Tony Goldwyn) to train the Japanese Emperor's troops in the use of modern weaponry. Opposing this "progress" is a rebellion of samurai warriors, holding fast to their traditions of honour despite strategic disadvantage. As a captive of the samurai leader (Ken Watanabe), Algren learns, appreciates, and adopts the Samurai code, switching sides for a climactic battle that will put everyone's honour to the ultimate test. All of which makes director Edward Zwick's noble epic eminently worthwhile, even if its Hollywood trappings (including an all-too-conventional ending) prevent it from being the masterpiece that Zwick and screenwriter John Logan clearly wanted it to be. Instead, The Last Samurai is an elegant mainstream adventure, impressive in all aspects of its production. It may not engage the emotions as effectively as Logan's script for Gladiator, but like Cruise's character, it finds its own quality of honour. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Facets / Waiting for the Moon [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Linda Bassett
  • Andrew McCarthy
  • Bruce McGill
  • Jill Godmilow
  • Daniel Langlet
  • Pierre-Alain Chapuis
Release date: 2006-04-25
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £11.31

Review Waiting for the Moon [1987] / Facets:


Review 20th Century Fox / The Adventures of Ociee Nash [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Keith Carradine
  • Skyler Day
  • Anthony P. Rodriguez
  • Charles Nuckols IV
  • Bill Butler (VI)
  • Kristen McGary
Release date: 2005-08-23
Run time: 98 min.
Price: £3.07

Review The Adventures of Ociee Nash [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review HBO Home Video / Vendetta [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Christopher Walken
  • Nicholas Meyer
  • Jack Jessop
  • Jack Newman (II)
  • Holly Dennison
  • Giuseppe Tancredi
Release date: 2000-03-07
Run time: 117 min.
Price: £2.82

Review Vendetta [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / HBO Home Video:


Review Vci Video / Pippin [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • David Sheehan
  • William Katt
  • Ben Vereen
  • Leslie Denniston
  • Martha Raye
  • Benjamin Rayson
Release date: 2000-10-24
Run time: 112 min.
Price: £6.70

Review Pippin [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Vci Video:


Review Universal Studios / Out of Africa [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Redford
  • Sydney Pollack
  • Meryl Streep
  • Michael Kitchen
  • Malick Bowens
  • Klaus Maria Brandauer
Release date: 2000-02-29
Run time: 161 min.
Price: £3.97

Review Out of Africa [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:

Winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Out of Africa seems to have slipped more readily from public memory than other comparably lauded films. Yet Sidney Pollack's panoramic treatment of Karen Blixen's novel has retained its atmosphere and slow-burning emotion, and deserves reassessment. Meryl Streep is in her possibly most involving starring role as Baroness Karen Blixen, Danish free spirit whose ill-fated venture at the beginning of World War One to run a coffee plantation in Kenya is overlaid by her intimate yet distant relationship with adventurer and idealist Denys Finch Hatton, unselfconsciously portrayed by Robert Redford. Klaus Maria Brandauer puts in a rare and convincing English-language appearance as the amoral but charming womaniser Baron Bror Blixen. The film is tellingly held together by Kurt Luedke's finely honed screenplay, and John Barry's sumptuously expressive score. On the DVD: The anamorphic 1. 85:1 widescreen format reproduces superbly, as does the 4. 1 discrete audio. 18 access points are provided, with printed and aural subtitles in English only. Pollack's feature commentary is amusing enough on a single run-through, but an on-location documentary would have been preferable. [+]
Production notes and biographies are very adequate, though the theatrical trailer reproduction is notably inferior. No matter, this is a major film, well worth the transfer to DVD. -Richard Whitehouse.

Review Video International / Mister Johnson [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • Pierce Brosnan
  • Bruce Beresford
  • Dennis Quilley
  • Edward Woodward
  • Maynard Eziashi
  • Beatie Edney
Release date: 2008-07-21
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £7.00

Review Mister Johnson [1990] / Video International:


Review Koch Vision / Sorrell and Son [1984][Region 1][NTSC] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Derek Bennett
  • Peter Chelsom
  • Richard Pasco
  • Sarah Neville (II)
  • Paul Critchley
  • John Shrapnel
Release date: 2008-03-04
Run time: 314 min.
Price: £9.88

Review Sorrell and Son [1984][Region 1][NTSC] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Koch Vision:


Review Weinstein Company / The Libertine [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Stanley Townsend
  • Laurence Dunmore
  • Paul Ritter
  • Francesca Annis
  • John Malkovich
  • Johnny Depp
Release date: 2006-07-04
Run time: 114 min.
Price: £4.88

Review The Libertine [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Weinstein Company:


Review Columbia TriStar / The Governess [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Harriet Walter
  • Bruce Myers
  • Florence Hoath
  • Minnie Driver
  • Sandra Goldbacher
  • Tom Wilkinson
Release date: 1999-02-16
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £7.99

Review The Governess [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:


Review Warner Home Video / The Majestic [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Bruce Campbell
  • Earl Boen
  • Jim Carrey
  • Frank Collison
  • Gerry Black
Release date: 2002-06-18
Run time: 152 min.
Creator: Mark Isham
Price: £4.50

Review The Majestic [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

Like Frank Darabont's other movies, The Majestic attempts, and sometimes achieves, the sheer decency of classic American movies. A cross between The Music Man and The Return of Martin Guerre, it is the film about McCarthyism that Frank Capra might have made if he had not drifted to the populist Right. An amnesiac screen-writer (Jim Carrey) is mistaken for a missing war-hero and becomes the force that reinvigorates a town distraught over its dead young men. The film is so caught up in a pastel-coloured elegiac celebration of small-town life that it at times loses pace altogether and not even Jim Carrey can quite pull it back up to its natural speed. On the other hand, his underplaying of the climactic confrontation with the House Un-American Affairs Committee-his career is at risk because he once followed a girlfriend to a political meeting-is admirable; we believe in his conversion from cynicism to heroism because he is even quieter than Jimmy Stewart in Mister Smith Goes to Washington mode. Martin Landau is a little too lovable as the grieving father who persuades Carrey of his identity, Laurie Holden not quite convincing as the woman for whom he falls. On the DVD: The Majestic on disc is presented in 1. 85:1 visual aspect ratio with crisp, clear visuals that sometimes make us gasp at the complex realism of the period details and has an attractive Dolby 5. 1 stereo acoustic. Extras include some deleted scenes, the trailer and an extended sequence from Sand Pirates of the Sahara, the witty B-movie pastiche that crops up at a couple of important moments in the plot. [+]
-Roz Kaveney.

Review Carlton Home Entertainment Ltd 3007400793 / Emma [1996] (Tv-Film)
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Strong
  • Kate Beckinsale
  • Dominic Rowan
  • Samantha Bond
  • Samantha Morton
  • Diarmuid Lawrence
Release date: 2000-01-26
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.08

Review Emma [1996] (Tv-Film) / Carlton Home Entertainment Ltd 3007400793:


Review Acorn Media / A Horseman Riding By - Vol. 1 [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Prunella Ransome
  • Glyn Houston
  • Fiona Gaunt
  • Madge Ryan
  • Nigel Havers
Release date: 2004-07-12
Run time: 250 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £16.98

Review A Horseman Riding By - Vol. 1 [1978] / Acorn Media:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Cold Mountain [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Nicole Kidman
  • Renée Zellweger
  • Jude Law
  • Eileen Atkins
  • Brendan Gleeson
  • Anthony Minghella
Release date: 2004-07-05
Run time: 152 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £4.99

Review Cold Mountain [2004] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Cold Mountain, freely adapted from Charles Frazier's beloved bestseller, boasts an impeccable pedigree as a respectable Civil War love story, offering everything you'd want from a romantic epic-except a resonant emotional core. Everything in this sweeping, Odyssean journey depends on believing in the instant love that ignites during a very brief encounter between genteel, city-bred preacher's daughter Ada (Nicole Kidman) and Confederate soldier Inman (Jude Law), who deserts the battlefield to return, weary and wounded, to Ada's inherited farm in the rural town of Cold Mountain, North Carolina. In an epic (but dramatically tenuous) case of absence making hearts grow fonder, Inman endures a treacherous hike fraught with danger (and populated by supporting players including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and others) while the struggling, inexperienced Ada is aided by the high-spirited Ruby (Renée Zellweger), forming a powerful farming partnership that transforms Ada into a strong, lovelorn survivor. The film's episodic structure slightly weakens its emotional impact, and it's fairly obvious that director Anthony Minghella is striving to repeat the prestigious romanticism of his Oscar-winning hit The English Patient. For the most part it works, especially in the dynamic performances of Zellweger and Kidman, and the explosive 1864 battle of Petersburg, Virginia, is recreated with violent, percussive intensity. Those who admired Frazier's novel may regret some of the changes made in Minghella's adaptation (the ending is particularly altered), but Cold Mountain remains a high-class example of grand, old-fashioned filmmaking, boosted by star power of the highest order. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Universal Studios / Talk to Me [HD DVD] [2007] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Don Cheadle
  • Vondie Curtis-Hall
  • Martin Sheen
  • Cedric the Entertainer
  • Mike Epps
  • Kasi Lemmons
Release date: 2007-10-30
Run time: 119 min.
Creator: Terence Blanchard
Price: £6.99

Review Talk to Me [HD DVD] [2007] [US Import] / Universal Studios:


Review Walt Disney Video / The Golden Door [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Aurora Quattrocchi
  • Charlotte Gainsbourg
  • Filippo Pucillo
  • Vincenzo Amato (II)
  • Francesco Casisa
  • Emanuele Crialese
Release date: 2008-01-08
Run time: 118 min.
Price: £12.36

Review The Golden Door [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Walt Disney Video:


Review Fox Lorber / Elective Affinities [1996] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Massimo Popolizio
  • Fabrizio Bentivoglio
  • Paolo Taviani
  • Isabelle Huppert
  • Marie Gillain
  • Jean-Hugues Anglade
  • Vittorio Taviani
Release date: 2005-05-17
Run time: 98 min.
Price: £7.35

Review Elective Affinities [1996] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Fox Lorber:


Review MCA Home Video / Cinderella Man [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Paddy Considine
  • Craig Bierko
  • Ron Howard
  • Russell Crowe
  • Paul Giamatti
  • Renée Zellweger
Release date: 2006-05-09
Run time: 145 min.
Price: £7.88

Review Cinderella Man [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import] / MCA Home Video:


Review Sullivan / Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Megan Follows
  • Jonathan Crombie
  • Kevin Sullivan
  • Wendy Hiller
  • Colleen Dewhurst
  • Frank Converse
Release date: 2004-09-07
Run time: 232 min.
Price: £8.64

Review Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Sullivan:


Review Kino / The Ninth Day [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Germain Wagner
  • August Diehl
  • Hilmar Thate
  • Bibiana Beglau
  • Ulrich Matthes
  • Volker Schlöndorff
Release date: 2005-12-06
Run time: 93 min.
Price: £10.80

Review The Ninth Day [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Kino:


Models & Brands:
The Last Samurai [Blu-ray] [2004] [US Import], Waiting for the Moon [1987], The Adventures of Ociee Nash [2003] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Vendetta [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Pippin [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Out of Africa [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Mister Johnson [1990], Sorrell and Son [1984][Region 1][NTSC] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Libertine [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Governess [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Majestic [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Emma [1996] (Tv-Film), A Horseman Riding By - Vol. 1 [1978], Cold Mountain [2004], Talk to Me [HD DVD] [2007] [US Import], The Golden Door [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Elective Affinities [1996] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Cinderella Man [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import], Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Ninth Day [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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