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

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


Review Kino / Sumurun [1921] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Ernst Lubitsch
  • Max Kronert
  • Paul Biensfeldt
  • Carl Clewig
  • Jenny Hasselquist
  • Margarete Kupfer
Release date: 2006-12-05
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Hollander
Price: £11.50

Review Sumurun [1921] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Kino:


Review Columbia TriStar / Age of Innocence [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Daniel Day-Lewis
  • Claire Bloom
  • Geraldine Chaplin
  • Brian Davies
  • Thomas Barbour
Release date: 2001-11-06
Run time: 138 min.
Creator: Elmer Bernstein
Price: £5.14

Review Age of Innocence [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:

Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the centre of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), a somewhat diffident young man engaged to marry the very respectable May Welland (Winona Ryder). But Archer is distracted by May's cousin, the Countess Olenska (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer), recently returned from Europe. As a married woman seeking a divorce, the countess is an embarrassment to all of New York society. But Archer is fascinated by her quick intelligence and worldly ways. Scorsese closely observes the tiny details of this world and this impossible situation; this is a movie in which the shift of someone's eyes can be as significant as the firing of a gun. The director's sense of colour has never been keener, and his work with the actors is subtle. That's Joanne Woodward narrating, telling us only as much as we need to know-which is one reason why the climax of The Age of Innocence comes as such a surprise. -Robert Horton Martin Scorsese does not sound like the logical choice to direct The Age of Innocence, an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel about the manners and morals in New York society in the 1870s. [+]
But these are mean streets, too, and the psychological violence inflicted between characters is at least as damaging as the physical violence perpetrated by Scorsese's usual gangsters. At the centre of the tale is Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), a somewhat diffident young man engaged to marry the very respectable May Welland (Winona Ryder). But Archer is distracted by May's cousin, the Countess Olenska (a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer), who has recently returned from Europe. As a married woman seeking a divorce, the Countess is an embarrassment to all of New York society. But Archer is fascinated by her quick intelligence and worldly ways. Scorsese closely observes the tiny details of this world and this impossible situation; this is a film in which the shift of someone's eyes can be as significant as the firing of a gun. The director's sense of colour has never been keener, and his work with the actors is subtle. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Acorn Media / All Passion Spent [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Faith Brook
  • John Franklyn-Robbins
  • Wendy Hiller
  • David Waller
  • Phyllis Calvert
Release date: 2006-05-30
Run time: 158 min.
Price: £11.36

Review All Passion Spent [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Acorn Media:


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

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


Review Whe / Upstairs Downstairs - Series 2 - Episodes 8-13 [1971]
Actors & Directors
  • Hannah Gordon
  • Derek Bennett
  • Raymond Menmuir
  • Bill Bain
  • Christopher Hodson
  • Madeleine Cannon
  • Raymond Huntley
  • Nicola Pagett
  • Christopher Beeny
Release date: 2002-08-05
Run time: 303 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £7.94

Review Upstairs Downstairs - Series 2 - Episodes 8-13 [1971] / Whe:


Review WGBH Boston / Masterpiece Theatre: Oliver Twist [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Roger Lloyd-Pack
  • Julie Walters
  • Sam Smith (III)
  • David Ross
  • Renny Rye
  • Ger Ryan
Release date: 2004-04-13
Run time: 360 min.
Price: £10.95

Review Masterpiece Theatre: Oliver Twist [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / WGBH Boston:


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

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


Review Miramax / Vatel [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Tim Roth
  • Timothy Spall
  • Uma Thurman
  • Julian Glover
  • Gérard Depardieu
  • Roland Joffé
Release date: 2001-08-07
Run time: 103 min.
Price: £7.46

Review Vatel [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:


Review Miramax / Country Life [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Ron Blanchard
  • Maurie Fields
  • John Hargreaves
  • Kerry Fox
  • Tony Barry
  • Michael Blakemore
Release date: 2002-05-21
Run time: 103 min.
Creator: Peter Best
Price: £3.22

Review Country Life [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Miramax:


Review TLA Releasing / The Silly Age [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Mercedes Sampietro
  • Carla Paneca
  • Susana Tejera
  • Pavel Giroud
  • José Ángel Egido
  • Iván Carreira
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:


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

Review Baiju Bawra [1952] / Gvi:


Review HBO Home Video / A Handful of Dust [1988] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Kristin Scott Thomas
  • Judi Dench
  • Rupert Graves
  • Anjelica Huston
  • James Wilby
  • Charles Sturridge
Release date: 2004-11-16
Run time: 114 min.
Price: £4.94

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 Criterion / Hamlet [1948] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Felix Aylmer
  • Stanley Holloway
  • Eileen Herlie
  • John Gielgud
  • Peter Cushing
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 20th Century Fox / Drums Along the Mohawk [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Eddie Collins
  • Claudette Colbert
  • John Carradine
  • John Ford
  • Edna May Oliver
  • Henry Fonda
Release date: 2005-05-24
Run time: 104 min.
Price: £4.92

Review Drums Along the Mohawk [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / 20th Century Fox:


Review Sony Pictures / Memoirs of a Geisha [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Youki Kudoh
  • Ziyi Zhang
  • Kôji Yakusho
  • Ken Watanabe
  • Suzuka Ohgo
  • Rob Marshall
Release date: 2007-09-25
Run time: 145 min.
Price: £12.48

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


Review Velocity Home Entertainment / Sex and a Girl [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Sean Flynn (IV)
  • Danny Masterson
  • Angela Gots
  • Ellen Greene
  • Robert Hays
  • Drew Ann Rosenberg
Release date: 2005-10-11
Run time: 96 min.
Price: £2.66

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


Review Paramount / The Untouchables [HD DVD] [1987] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Martin Smith
  • Brian De Palma
  • Andy Garcia
  • Robert De Niro
  • Sean Connery
  • Kevin Costner
Release date: 2007-07-03
Run time: 119 min.

Review The Untouchables [HD DVD] [1987] [US Import] / Paramount:

The DVD extras follow the adage that if one has lemons, make lemonade. This "special" edition has no commentary track, and no new input from stars Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, and Andy Garcia or writer David Mamet. Yet DVD director Laurent Bouzereau has an ace up his sleeve that makes the four new featurettes (about 50 minutes of content) worth listening to: candid talk. The usual, stiff promotional take is jettisoned as producer Art Linson and director Brian De Palma honestly talk about the film's origins, the tricks of shooting, and the casting of Robert De Niro. These refreshing comments (plus insight from the cinematographer Stephen H. Burum and actor Charles Martin Smith), and better-than-average vintage interviews makes for valuable watching-even if the footage is intercut too often with film clips. To top it all off, there's a new Dolby Digital 5. 1 EX soundtrack. -Doug Thomas.

Review Criterion / The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • David Hutcheson
  • Vincent Holman
  • Roger Livesey
  • Michael Powell
  • James McKechnie
  • Emeric Pressburger
  • Neville Mapp
Release date: 2002-10-22
Run time: 163 min.
Price: £15.85

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 Kino / Anna Boleyn [1920] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Henny Porten
  • Aud Egede Nissen
  • Ludwig Hartau
  • Emil Jannings
  • Paul Hartmann
  • Ernst Lubitsch
Release date: 2006-12-05
Run time: 118 min.
Price: £10.81

Review Anna Boleyn [1920] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Kino:


Models & Brands:
Pride And Prejudice [2005], Sumurun [1921] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Age of Innocence [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC), All Passion Spent [1986] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Masterpiece Theatre: Northanger Abbey [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Upstairs Downstairs - Series 2 - Episodes 8-13 [1971], Masterpiece Theatre: Oliver Twist [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Cause Celebre [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Vatel [2000] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Country Life [1995] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Silly Age [2007] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Baiju Bawra [1952], A Handful of Dust [1988] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Hamlet [1948] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Drums Along the Mohawk [1939] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Memoirs of a Geisha [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import], Sex and a Girl [2001] (REGION 1) (NTSC), The Untouchables [HD DVD] [1987] [US Import], The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp - Criterion Collection [1943] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Anna Boleyn [1920] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

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