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Review Sony Pictures / Memoirs of a Geisha [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Ken Watanabe
  • Suzuka Ohgo
  • Youki Kudoh
  • Rob Marshall
  • Ziyi Zhang
  • Kôji Yakusho
Release date: 2007-09-25
Run time: 145 min.
Price: £12.51

Review Memoirs of a Geisha [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import] / Sony Pictures:


Review Kino / Kimstim Collection: Emigrant [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Amr Abdel-Guelil
  • Sayed Abdel-Kerim
  • Seif Abdel-Rahman
  • Yousra
  • Michel Piccoli
  • Youssef Chahine
Release date: 2005-05-10
Run time: 123 min.
Creator: Mohamed Nouh
Price: £10.99

Review Kimstim Collection: Emigrant [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Kino:


Review Criterion / Hamlet [1948] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Felix Aylmer
  • Eileen Herlie
  • Peter Cushing
  • Stanley Holloway
  • John Gielgud
Release date: 2000-09-19
Run time: 153 min.
Creator: William Walton
Price: £11.99

Review Hamlet [1948] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

In the opening scene of Hamlet, Laurence Olivier describes the play in a voice-over as "the tragedy of a man who couldn't make up his mind". But Olivier's screen adaptation is considerably more thoughtful and complex than this thesis would suggest. The contradictions and ambiguities of the title character, who prowls cavernous sets filled with vast, ancient corridors and winding staircases, emerge as if from a dream. The plethora of tracking shots-precise enough to impress Stanley Kubrick-encircle Olivier and his tightly constructed geometry of demise. Drawing on his experience playing the Prince on stage at Elsinore in 1937, the legendary thesp provides the film with the patina of greatness and shows how the constitution of the formerly cheerful Prince weakens increasingly under the burden of his own thoughts and inability to accept his mother's o'er-hasty marriage to uncle Claudius (Basil Sydney). Indeed, if emotions could possess ghosts, Olivier's Hamlet shows how they would manifest themselves. There is even a dollop of Freud, suggesting that Queen Gertrude (Eileen Herlie) has perhaps loved her offspring too closely-thus providing the fuel for Hamlet's actions. As Ophelia, Jeans Simmons captures the character's early spirit better than her gradual disintegration (Helena Bonham Carter fares better in Franco Zeffirelli's fine 1990 remake). Purists may bemoan the loss of Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but these choices allow Olivier to focus more squarely on Hamlet's plight. His monologues, many held in secret enclaves, glow with the dramatic markedness of a Dostoevski novel, with all of the master's irony, allusions and witticisms in place. [+]
The winner of four Oscars (Best Picture, Actor, Art Direction, and Costumes), this is a Hamlet for the ages. The rest is silence. -Kevin Mulhall.

Review Warner Home Video / The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Curtiz
  • Olivia de Havilland
  • Donald Crisp
  • Chuck Jones
  • Errol Flynn
  • Alan Hale
  • Bette Davis
Release date: 2005-04-19
Run time: 106 min.
Price: £7.32

Review The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review TLA Releasing / The Silly Age [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • José Ángel Egido
  • Mercedes Sampietro
  • Pavel Giroud
  • Iván Carreira
  • Susana Tejera
  • Carla Paneca
Release date: 2008-03-18
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Ulises Hernandez
Price: £6.73

Review The Silly Age [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / TLA Releasing:


Review Lance Entertainment / Cause Celebre [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Helen Mirren
  • Harry Andrews
  • Norma West
  • John Gorrie
  • David Morrissey
  • Oliver Ford Davies
Release date: 2004-01-01
Run time: 105 min.
Price: £10.54

Review Cause Celebre [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lance Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / All the Queen's Men [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Eddie Izzard
  • Matt LeBlanc
  • James Cosmo
  • Stefan Ruzowitzky
  • Nicolette Krebitz
  • David Birkin
Release date: 2003-11-18
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £4.80

Review All the Queen's Men [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Pride And Prejudice [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Tom Hollander
  • Brenda Blethyn
  • Keira Knightley
  • Donald Sutherland
  • Joe Wright
  • Matthew MacFadyen
Release date: 2006-02-06
Run time: 121 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £14.98

Review Pride And Prejudice [2005] / Universal Pictures UK:


Actors & Directors
  • Malick Bowens
  • Haluk Bilginer
  • Alex Descas
  • Lucia Bosé
  • Valeria Golino
Release date: 2007-10-25
Creator: Pivio De Scalzi
Price: £17.20

Review Harem Suare [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Tva Films:


Review Acorn Media / The Pallisers - Vol. 4 - Episodes 21 To 26
Actors & Directors
  • Barbara Murray
  • Susan Hampshire
  • Hugh David
  • Anna Massey
  • Roland Culver
  • Philip Latham
Release date: 2005-06-13
Run time: 300 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £18.18

Review The Pallisers - Vol. 4 - Episodes 21 To 26 / Acorn Media:


Review New Line Home Video / Gracie [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Davis Guggenheim
  • Jesse Lee Soffer
  • Christopher Shand
  • Karl Girolamo
  • Carly Schroeder
  • Vasilios Mantagas
Release date: 2007-09-18
Run time: 97 min.
Price: £4.35

Review Gracie [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / New Line Home Video:


Review Velocity Home Entertainment / Sex and a Girl [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Flynn (IV)
  • Ellen Greene
  • Drew Ann Rosenberg
  • Angela Gots
  • Danny Masterson
  • Robert Hays
Release date: 2005-10-11
Run time: 96 min.
Price: £2.69

Review Sex and a Girl [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Velocity Home Entertainment:


Actors & Directors
  • Kuldip Kaur
  • Vijay Bhatt
  • Surendra
  • Meena Kumari
  • Bipin Gupta
  • Bharat Bhushan
Release date: 2003-01-01
Run time: 155 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.99

Review Baiju Bawra [1952] / Gvi:


Review Criterion / Children of Paradise [1945] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Pierre Brasseur
  • Marcel Carné
  • Pierre Renoir
  • Jean-Louis Barrault
  • María Casares
  • Arletty
Release date: 2002-01-22
Run time: 190 min.
Price: £16.38

Review Children of Paradise [1945] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

A film which regularly charts high in critics' polls of the best films of all time, director Marcel Carné and screenwriter Jacques Prévert's masterpiece Les Enfants du Paradis is as solid a landmark in French film history as the Eiffel Tower is on the Parisian landscape. And at 187 minutes running time, it's a massy edifice indeed, built from a rambunctious cast of characters-ranging from pickpockets and prostitutes to aristocrats and actors-whose lives intersect around the Theatre des Funambules, a popular Parisian theatre on the Boulevard du Crime, during the 1840s. (The title refers to the poor who can only afford seats in the upper galleries of the theatre. ) The heart of the plot is a love story between mime artiste Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) and streetwalker Garance (the magnificent, sand-paper-voiced Arletty). When Garance is falsely accused of pickpocketing, Baptiste provides a mimed alibi for her to the police (one of the film's most famous set pieces). The rose she later throws him in gratitude sets off a romantic obsession, one of several that structure the film, as do love triangles, duels, and tortured confessions of feeling. Thematically, Les Enfant du Paradis gnaws over typically French cinematic preoccupations: illusion and reality, the nature of performance, the indomitable spirit of the proletariat and so on, all made the more charged and poignant when you know the film was shot during the Nazi occupation. (One actor, Robert Le Vigan, was reportedly a Nazi collaborator and disappeared during the filming under mysterious circumstances and so had to be replaced by Pierre Renoir. ) -Leslie Felperin.

Review HBO Home Video / A Handful of Dust [1988] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Sturridge
  • Anjelica Huston
  • Rupert Graves
  • James Wilby
  • Judi Dench
  • Kristin Scott Thomas
Release date: 2004-11-16
Run time: 114 min.
Price: £4.96

Review A Handful of Dust [1988] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / HBO Home Video:

Adapted from Evelyn Waugh's Jazz Age satire, A Handful of Dust is a brutal story of a failed marriage with shattering consquences. James Wilby stars as a country gentleman, Tony Last, who loves rattling around his expansive estate, Hetton Abbey. Tony's wife, Brenda (Kristin Scott Thomas), however, pines for London's excitement and commences an affair in the city with penniless aristocrat John Beaver (Rupert Graves). The fallout of Brenda's betrayal includes a family tragedy and creative divorce settlement ultimately undone when fed-up Tony goes on a naturalist trek through Brazil and becomes the hostage of a mad, illiterate explorer (Alec Guinness). One might wonder whether it's more appropriate to laugh or tremble at these events, and director Charles Sturridge's handsome, graceful production ingeniously accommodates the story's streaks of dark comedy and horror. With brief, memorable supporting roles for Anjelica Huston and Stephen Fry. -Tom Keogh.

Review Acorn Media / Hard Times [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Alan Dobie
  • Patrick Allen
  • Harry Markham
  • John Irvin
  • Richard Wren
  • Ursula Howells
Release date: 2007-03-13
Run time: 203 min.
Price: £14.79

Review Hard Times [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Acorn Media:


Review WGBH Boston / Masterpiece Theatre: Northanger Abbey [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Geraldine James
  • Michael Judd
  • Jon Jones (II)
  • Felicity Jones (II)
  • Julia Dearden
  • Gerry O'Brien
Release date: 2008-01-22
Run time: 86 min.
Price: £8.43

Review Masterpiece Theatre: Northanger Abbey [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / WGBH Boston:


Review Columbia TriStar / Tess [1979] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Leigh Lawson
  • Rosemary Martin
  • John Collin
  • Roman Polanski
  • Nastassja Kinski
  • Peter Firth
Release date: 2004-09-28
Run time: 172 min.
Price: £5.20

Review Tess [1979] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:

Roman Polanski adapted Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles and came up with this moody, haunting film starring Nastassia Kinski as the farm girl who is misused by the aristocrat for whom she works and who is then caught in a marriage where her initial happiness soon turns to grief. Fans of the novel may feel unpersuaded by Polanski's effort to marry Hardy's Dorset vision with his own fascination with psychosexual impulses toward survival, but the film is an often stunning thing to see, and Kinski's sensitive, intelligent performance lingers in the memory. -Tom Keogh.

Review Criterion / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • James McKechnie
  • Neville Mapp
  • Michael Powell
  • David Hutcheson
  • Roger Livesey
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Vincent Holman
Release date: 2002-10-22
Run time: 163 min.
Price: £15.87

Review The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Criterion:

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1943 film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was intended to bolster the propaganda effort. Colonel Blimp was a cartoon character conceived to parody the hidebound, elder military types whose attitudes towards war were irrelevant when it came to fighting the Nazis, a point made in the first few minutes of the movie when a platoon of young troops cheekily capture walrus-faced General Candy (Roger Livesey) during a training exercise, oblivious to his splutterings that "war starts at midnight!" Thereafter, Powell and Pressburger forge a more complex portrayal of Candy, following his career over 40 years, from the Boer War through World War I. There are strong, touching reminders of Goodbye, Mr Chips in his relationship with a German officer, played by Anton Walbrook, (a reflection, perhaps of Powell's own alliance with the German Pressburger), while Deborah Kerr recurs in three different roles, reminding Candy of the lifelong love he has missed out on. By the end, Candy's inability to recognise that the Nazis are not playing by his own, proper military rules is reaffirmed but more sympathetically. No one could mistake Powell and Pressburger's patriotic intentions here yet Winston Churchill was sufficiently disconcerted by the film to try to have it banned. It wasn't-and it proved a huge, deserved success. -David Stubbs Powell and Pressburger's first Technicolor masterpiece, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) transcends its narrow wartime propaganda remit to portray in warm-hearted detail the life and loves of one extraordinary man. The film's clever narrative structure first presents us with the imposingly rotund General Clive Wynne-Candy of the Home Guard (Roger Livesey in his greatest screen performance), a blustering old buffer with spreading handlebar moustache and stomach to match. Confronted by a youthful regular army Captain he seems the epitome of stuffy, outmoded values. But travelling backwards 40 years we see a different man altogether: the young and dashing officer "Sugar" Candy, just returned from earning a Victoria Cross in the Boer War. [+]
Through a series of affecting relationships with three women (all played to perfection by Deborah Kerr) and his touching lifelong friendship with a German officer (Anton Wallbrook), we see Candy's life unfold, and come to understand how difficult it is for him to adapt his sense of military honour to modern notions of "total war". If Livesey's engaging Clive Candy is the film's heart, Anton Wallbrook's Theo is its conscience; his exile speech delivered to an uncomprehending immigration officer is a heartfelt tour de force made all the more poignant by the Austrian actor's own circumstances, as well as those of Hungarian scriptwriter Emeric Pressburger. Powell's technically masterful and innovative direction illuminates every scene, from the surprising camera move in the duel sequence to the hunting montage of stuffed animal heads on a wall. Notoriously, this is the film that Churchill tried to have banned, and indeed its sympathetic portrayal of a German officer was contentious in 1943, though one suspects that Churchill's own blimpishness was a factor too. On the DVD: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp looks in excellent condition on this special edition DVD. The mono sound is crisp and the picture largely free of grain, allowing the subtle lighting and muted colours to be seen as intended. The main extra is a 25-minute documentary feature which tells us nothing revelatory about making the film, but has good new interviews with cinematographer Jack Cardiff (then an apprentice) and eloquent admirer Stephen Fry. Text biographies and stills are also included. -Mark Walker.

Review Acorn Media / Tom Brown's Schooldays [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Morant
  • Iain Cuthbertson
  • Anthony Murphy
  • Gareth Davies
  • Simon Turner
Release date: 2005-02-07
Run time: 219 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £29.99

Review Tom Brown's Schooldays [1971] / Acorn Media:


Models & Brands:
Memoirs of a Geisha [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import], Kimstim Collection: Emigrant [1994] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Hamlet [1948] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Silly Age [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Cause Celebre [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC), All the Queen's Men [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Pride And Prejudice [2005], Harem Suare [1998] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Pallisers - Vol. 4 - Episodes 21 To 26, Gracie [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Sex and a Girl [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Baiju Bawra [1952], Children of Paradise [1945] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Handful of Dust [1988] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Hard Times [1977] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Masterpiece Theatre: Northanger Abbey [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Tess [1979] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Tom Brown's Schooldays [1971]

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