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Review Tartan Video / Strike [1924]
Actors & Directors
  • Mikhail Gomorov
  • Maksim Shtraukh
  • Grigori Aleksandrov
  • Anatoli Kuznetsov
  • I. Ivanov
  • Sergei M. Eisenstein
Release date: 1996-06-03
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £9.95

Review Strike [1924] / Tartan Video:

Sergei Eisenstein's debut film is more than a landmark of Soviet cinema; it's easily one of the most thrilling and inventive films to emerge from the silent era of Russian film making. Eisenstein was a theatre director and stage designer with some very specific ideas about the cinema, and he put them into practice telling the story of a worker's strike in pre-Revolution Russia, portraying the struggle not of leader against leader, but of the proletariat against the factory owners, enlivened by a conspiratorial subplot involving a quartet of insidious spies sent to infiltrate the ranks of the workers. The subject matter is at times didactic and the acting often hammy and overwrought, but the technique is vibrant and the images striking. Eisenstein's compositions reflect the graphic boldness of contemporary poster art, mixing poetic realism with grotesque expressionism in a gripping style, and his famous montage editing style (to be perfected in his next film, Battleship Potemkin) is raw, experimental and energetic. Eisenstein's later films are more consistent and elegant, but none of them have the sheer cinematic invention and energy of this first film. The new score, composed and performed by the idiosyncratic Alloy Orchestra, combines a mix of martial and mood music on synthesiser with the driving percussion of drums, wood blocks, bells and wrecking yard of clanging metal objects-a dynamic soundtrack to one of the most auspicious directoral debuts ever. -Sean Axmaker.

Actors & Directors
  • Kelly McGillis
  • Roberts Blossom
  • Tom Conti
  • Cynthia Harris
  • Robert Ellis Miller
  • Lois Smith
  • E. Katherine Kerr
Run time: 96 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Reuben, Reuben [1983] / Twentieth Century Fox:


Review 2 Entertain Video / The Duchess Of Duke Street - Series 2 - Part 4 [1977]
Actors & Directors
  • Cyril Coke
  • Gemma Jones
  • Christopher Cazenove
  • Bill Bain
  • Gerry Mill
Release date: 1996-04-01
Run time: 168 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £9.00

Review The Duchess Of Duke Street - Series 2 - Part 4 [1977] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Odyssey Video / Holiday Affair [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Tom Irwin (II)
  • Al Waxman
  • Alan Myerson
  • Curtis Blanck
  • Cynthia Gibb
  • David James Elliott
Release date: 2000-11-06
Run time: 85 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Holiday Affair [1996] / Odyssey Video:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / City Of God [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Leandro Firmino
  • Fernando Meirelles
  • Douglas Silva
  • Phellipe Haagensen
  • Alexandre Rodrigues
  • Jonathan Haagensen
  • Kátia Lund
Release date: 2003-09-22
Run time: 135 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £6.05

Review City Of God [2003] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Like cinematic dynamite, City of God lights a fuse under its squalid Brazilian ghetto, and we're a captive audience to its violent explosion. The titular favela is home to a seething army of impoverished children who grow, over the film's ambitious 20-year time frame, into cut-throat killers, drug lords and feral survivors. In the vortex of this maelstrom is L'il Z (Leandro Firmino da Hora-like most of the cast, a non-professional actor), self-appointed king of the dealers, determined to eliminate all competition at the expense of his corrupted soul. With enough visual vitality and provocative substance to spark heated debate (and box-office gold) in Brazil, codirectors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund tackle their subject head on, creating a portrait of youthful anarchy so appalling-and so authentically immediate-that City of God prompted reforms in socioeconomic policy. It's a bracing feat of stylistic audacity, borrowing from a dozen other films to form its own unique identity. You'll flinch, but you can't look away. -Jeff Shannon.

Review ITV VHS / Rebecca [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Emilia Fox
  • Faye Dunaway
  • Charles Dance
  • Geraldine James
  • Diana Rigg
Release date: 1997-02-03
Run time: 189 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £16.99

Review Rebecca [1997] / ITV VHS:


Review Pathe Distribution / La Reine Margot (1993)
Actors & Directors
  • Isabelle Adjani
  • Patrice Chéreau
  • Jean-Hugues Anglade
  • Vincent Perez
  • Daniel Auteuil
  • Virna Lisi
Release date: 1995-08-07
Run time: 155 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.00

Review La Reine Margot (1993) / Pathe Distribution:

Based on a novel by Alexandre Dumas, La Reine Margot concerns the events behind infamous Massacre of St Bartholomew in sixth-century France. Isabelle Adjani plays Margot, betrothed for political reasons to one man (Daniel Auteuil) by her mother (Virna Lisi), while she is, in fact, in love with another (Vincent Pérez). Despite the bond that grows between the reluctant couple, plots are hatching all over the castle against the royals. Adventurous, exciting, erotic and given strong artistic credibility through its outstanding cast, the film is enthralling and visually sumptuous. Directed by Patrice Chereau, less known outside of France than is the film's producer, Claude Berri (director of Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources). -Tom Keogh.

Review Warner Home Video / Desperate Journey [1942]
Actors & Directors
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Errol Flynn
  • Raoul Walsh
  • Nancy Coleman
Release date: 1990-05-21
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £35.99

Review Desperate Journey [1942] / Warner Home Video:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Jane Eyre [1943]
Actors & Directors
  • Orson Welles
  • Margaret O'Brien
  • Peggy Ann Garner
  • Joan Fontaine
  • Robert Stevenson
  • John Sutton
Release date: 1994-08-01
Run time: 96 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £23.90

Review Jane Eyre [1943] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

This 1943 version of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was made just two years after Citizen Kane, and it certainly looks like star Orson Welles muscled his way behind the camera much of the time. (In fact, co-star Joan Fontaine-who plays the title character-has maintained that Welles methodically did just that every day on the set. ) Not that the film's official director was a hack: Robert Stevenson gets the credit, a man who later had a busy career at Disney making numerous live-action hits such as Mary Poppins. But there's no mistaking Welles' masterful hand in this film's bold and creative look, and there's no getting away from his enigmatic charisma as Rochester, the widower who takes in Jane as a governess to his daughter. An engrossing, gorgeous film, there's even a small role for Elizabeth Taylor at the beginning as Jane's unlucky, doomed friend at a cruel boarding school. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / Stalin [1992] (Tv-Film)
Actors & Directors
  • Julia Ormond
  • Ivan Passer
  • actor
Release date: 1994-05-09
Run time: 166 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Stalin [1992] (Tv-Film) / Warner Home Video:


Review Acorn Media / Lord Peter Wimsey - The Nine Tailors [1974]
Actors & Directors
  • Ian Carmichael
  • Raymond Menmuir
  • Anne Blake
  • Keith Drinkel
  • Glyn Houston
  • Elizabeth Proud
Release date: 2001-07-02
Run time: 208 min.
Price: £16.99

Review Lord Peter Wimsey - The Nine Tailors [1974] / Acorn Media:

Based on the series of novels written by Dorothy L Sayers in the 1920s and 30s, Lord Peter Wimsey was dramatised for TV by the BBC between 1972-5. Ian Carmichael, veteran of British film comedy, played the genial, aristocratic sleuth; Glyn Houston was his manservant Bunter. The pair are similar to PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Bertie Wooster (whom Carmichael played in an earlier TV adaptation) though here the duo are equal in intelligence, breezing about the country together in Wimsey's Bentley and stumbling with morbid regularity upon baffling murder mysteries to test their wits. Those for whom this series forms hazy memories of childhood might be surprised at its somewhat stagy, lingering interior shots, the spartan paucity of music, the miserly attitude towards locations, especially foreign ones, and the rather genteel, leisurely pace of these programmes, besides which Inspector Morse seems like Quentin Tarantino in comparison. It seems that initially the BBC was reluctant to commission the series and ventured on production with a wary eye on the budget. The Britain depicted by Sayers is, by and large, populated by either the upper classes or heavily accented, rum-do-and-no-mistake lower orders, which some might find consoling. However, the acting is generally excellent and the murder mysteries are sophisticated parlour games, the televisual equivalent of a good, absorbing jigsaw puzzle. There were five feature-length adaptations in all. "The Nine Tailors" weaves an especially elaborate tale, involving jewel theft, campanology (the art of bell-ringing) and dual identity. -David Stubbs.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Noel Coward - Private Lives and Biographical Film (Box Set)
Actors & Directors
  • Penelope Keith
Release date: 1999-08-02
RRP: £24.99
Price: £24.99

Review Noel Coward - Private Lives and Biographical Film (Box Set) / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Brookside - The Lost Weekend [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Claire Sweeney
  • Sarah White
  • Keith Evans (VIII)
  • Dean Sullivan
  • Hannah Dowd
  • Rob Rohrer
  • Dez McCarthy
  • Jack Mythen
  • Pip Short
  • Adrian Bean
Release date: 1997-11-15
Run time: 102 min.
RRP: £14.99
Price: £1.95

Review Brookside - The Lost Weekend [1982] / Universal Pictures UK:


Actors & Directors
  • William Hickey
  • Martin Sheen
  • Doreen Hepburn
  • Barnard Hughes
  • Matt Clark
Release date: 1991-05-07
Run time: 98 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Da [1988] / Columbia Tri-Star Home Video:


Review Imc Vision / Ruth Rendell Mysteries - Means Of Evil [1991]
Actors & Directors
  • Diane Keen
  • George Baker
  • Patrick Malahide
  • Christopher Ravenscroft
  • Sarah Hellings
  • Louie Ramsay
Release date: 1998-06-08
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £12.16

Review Ruth Rendell Mysteries - Means Of Evil [1991] / Imc Vision:


Actors & Directors
  • Paul Newman
  • Paul Newman
  • Wilford Brimley
  • Ellen Barkin
  • Robby Benson
  • Joanne Woodward
Run time: 105 min.

Review Harry & Son (1984) / Rank:

paul newman,joanne woodward,robby benson. father and son bittersweet drama.

Review Dd Home Entertainment / The Ship That Died Of Shame [1955]
Actors & Directors
  • Virginia McKenna
  • Richard Attenborough
  • George Baker
  • Roland Culver
  • Bill Owen
  • Basil Dearden
Release date: 2000-07-03
Run time: 88 min.
Price: £10.99

Review The Ship That Died Of Shame [1955] / Dd Home Entertainment:

Quite why this film has remained neglected for so long is something of a mystery. Its credentials are impeccable: an Ealing Studios production based on a short story by Nicholas Monserrat (author of The Cruel Sea), directed by Basil Dearden (The Blue Lamp, The League of Gentlemen) and starring an ensemble of distinguished British thesps, The Ship That Died of Shame has all the hallmarks of a post-war British classic, yet is virtually unknown. Perhaps the problem is the clumsy title, which not only gives away the ending but also signposts the heavy-handed moral message. Ship 1087 and her crew are proud to make a sterling contribution to the coastal defences during the war, but post-war austerity brings lean years for all. Illicit cross-channel smuggling seems like an attractive and lucrative prospect. But from the apparently harmless ferrying of duty-free wine the crew gradually descend into altogether deeper waters, culminating in the carriage of a mysterious fugitive who turns out to be a convicted child-killer. George Baker (latterly TV's Inspector Wexford) is the upright skipper who wrestles with his conscience; Dickie Attenborough his amoral Number Two who persuades, cajoles and finally threatens his old captain into going along with the increasingly dubious and dangerous schemes. Bill Owen's down-to-earth coxswain and Bernard Lee's dogged customs officer provide sterling support, while Virginia McKenna has a small cameo as the only woman in the whole movie. The titular star, ship 1087, turns out to have a conscience of her own. "If we knew the way and could set a course for Hell, she'd go," brags Attenborough; but 1087 won't go. [+]
"She's got her pride like all of us", as the crew discover to their cost. The subject of ex-servicemen who served their country with such pride turning to crime in the post-war austerity years was one Dearden would return to, with more subtle and comic effect, in The League of Gentlemen. But here the problems of returning to civvy street become the stuff of somewhat po-faced melodrama-"Got a bit tired of working for the plebs after fighting for 'em", is one character's weary justification-in which everyone gets their just desserts in the end and the absolute moral certainties of wartime are restored. For a depiction of the moral vacuum that was post-war Britain look to Brighton Rock, instead; The Ship That Died of Shame is best taken at face value as an unpretentious period melodrama. -Mark Walker.

Review Momentum Pictures / Une Liaison Pornographique [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Nathalie Baye
  • Sergi López
  • Paul Pavel
  • Sylvie Van den Elsen
  • Frédéric Fonteyne
  • Jacques Viala
Release date: 2001-04-23
Run time: 103 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £11.95

Review Une Liaison Pornographique [1999] / Momentum Pictures:


Review Cinema Club / Girls' Night [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Julie Walters
  • Brenda Blethyn
  • Margo Stanley
  • Meera Syal
  • Sue Cleaver
  • Nick Hurran
Release date: 2000-10-02
Run time: 98 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Girls' Night [1998] / Cinema Club:

The Girls' Night of the title refers to Friday night, the one time of escape from the daily grind for longstanding best friends and factory co-workers, Dawn and Jackie. And Friday night means bingo. One evening their dream comes true when Dawn (the cautious, caring one) scoops £100,000, but the savage twist in the tale is that even before she gets the cheque she discovers she has an inoperable brain tumour. Cue Jackie (the spontaneous, irresponsible one) fulfilling Dawn's lifetime ambition with a holiday in Las Vegas ("Come on, we've got an hour to get the plane"). And from then on it's a buddy movie with inescapable resonances of Thelma and Louise, though the difference here is that the protagonists are two ordinary middle-aged women. Brenda Blethyn and Julie Walters are a magical pairing, with both giving mesmerising moving performances (honorary mention should also be made of Cody, the one sympathetic male character in the film, magnificently played by Kris Kristofferson). Though death is ever-present, this is by no means a depressing movie; rather the opposite, in fact, with a remarkably upbeat ending. If there's a message to be found here, it's that even the most apparently ordinary people can be extraordinary given the right circumstances. On the DVD: As well as the original trailer, there is on-location feature.

Actors & Directors
  • Kathy Bates
  • Cher
  • Karen Black
  • Sudie Bond
  • Sandy Dennis
  • Robert Altman
Release date: 1992-02-24
Run time: 109 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Come Back To The Five And Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [1982] / Castlevision:


Browse Drama:

Models & Brands:
Strike [1924], Reuben, Reuben [1983], The Duchess Of Duke Street - Series 2 - Part 4 [1977], Holiday Affair [1996], City Of God [2003], Rebecca [1997], La Reine Margot (1993), Desperate Journey [1942], Jane Eyre [1943], Stalin [1992] (Tv-Film), Lord Peter Wimsey - The Nine Tailors [1974], Noel Coward - Private Lives and Biographical Film (Box Set), Brookside - The Lost Weekend [1982], Da [1988], Ruth Rendell Mysteries - Means Of Evil [1991], Harry & Son (1984), The Ship That Died Of Shame [1955], Une Liaison Pornographique [1999], Girls' Night [1998], Come Back To The Five And Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean [1982]

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