White is the second of witty Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowki's "three colours" trilogy Blue, White, and Red-the three colours of the French flag, symbolising liberty, equality and fraternity. White is an ironic comedy brimming over with the hard laughs of despair, ecstasy, ambition and longing played in a minor key. Down-and-out Polish immigrant Karol Karol is desperate to get out of France. He's obsessed with his French soon-to-be ex-wife (Before Sunrise's Julie Delpy), his French bank account is frozen, and he's fed up with the inequality of it all. Penniless, he convinces a fellow Pole to smuggle him home in a suitcase-which then gets stolen from the airport. The unhappy thieves beat him and dump him in a snowy rock pit. Things can only get better, right? The story evolves into a wickedly funny anti-romance, an inverse Romeo and Juliet. Because it's in two foreign languages, the dialogue can be occasionally hard to follow, but some of the most genuinely funny and touching moments need no verbal explanation. -Grant Balfour.

Sergei Eisenstein's revolutionary sophomore feature has so long stood as a textbook example of montage editing that many have forgotten what an invigoratingly cinematic experience he created. A 20th-anniversary tribute to the 1905 revolution, Eisenstein portrays the revolt in microcosm with a dramatisation of the real-life mutiny aboard the battleship Potemkin. The story tells a familiar party-line message of the oppressed working class (in this case the enlisted sailors) banding together to overthrow their oppressors (the ship's officers), led by proto-revolutionary Vakulinchuk. When he dies in the shipboard struggle the crew lays his body to rest on the pier, a moody, moving scene where the citizens of Odessa slowly emerge from the fog to pay their respects. As the crowd grows Eisenstein turns the tenor from mourning a fallen comrade to celebrating the collective achievement. The government responds by sending soldiers and ships to deal with the mutinous crew and the supportive townspeople, which climaxes in the justly famous (and often imitated and parodied) Odessa Steps massacre. Eisenstein edits carefully orchestrated motions within the frame to create broad swaths of movement, shots of varying length to build the rhythm, close-ups for perspective and shock effect, and symbolic imagery for commentary, all to create one of the most cinematically exciting sequences in film history. Eisenstein's film is Marxist propaganda to be sure but the power of this masterpiece lies not in its preaching but its poetry. -Sean Axmaker.

Another Eddie Murphy action vehicle that pales in comparison to hits like Beverly Hills Cop, this standard cop-movie fare still manages to be engaging on the strength of Murphy's ease in front of a camera. Murphy plays an unorthodox hostage negotiator for the San Francisco Police Department on the trail of the criminal who killed his partner. Paired up with a bright new trainee played by Michael Rapaport (Beautiful Girls, Mighty Aphrodite), Murphy uses both his skills and his anger to hunt down the killer. A competent action movie, there are some standout moments such as a car chase culminating in a cable car shoot-out on the streets of San Francisco, and Michael Wincott's (The Crow) frightening performance as the villain. Metro offers up a standard action vehicle for Murphy to showcase his charm, as well as a moderate entertainment with some memorable moments. -Robert Lane.

Writer Harold Pinter and director Joseph Losey always hoped to make an adaptation of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu. Their version of L. P. Hartley's novel The Go-Between offers tantalising hints as to how the Proust film might have turned out. An old man (Michael Redgrave) thinks back to a summer many years before when, as a young boy, he stayed with the aristocratic Maudsley family in their beautiful house in the Norfolk countryside. On the threshold of adolescence, intensely curious about sex, he became the go-between for Marian Maudsley (Julie Christie) and local farmer Ted Burgess (Alan Bates) as they conducted an affair behind the backs of the Maudsley family. This is a slow-moving but beguiling story of lost innocence. There's a subtlety and intelligence here rarely found in British costume dramas. The filmmakers go to enormous lengths to recreate Edwardian England, but never allow the period detail to stifle the storytelling. Although life with the Maudsleys seems idyllic-an endless round of picnics, cricket matches and parties-there is always an undercurrent of violence. [+]

Shot in the UFA studios with a big movie star in the lead and all the special effects and production design resources any blockbuster of its time could wish for, FW Murnau's 1926 Faust represents a step up from his better-known Nosferatu. Oddly, Faust is a less familiar film than the vampire quickie and this release affords fans a chance to see what Murnau can do with an equally major fantasy story. Adapted neither from Marlowe's play Dr Faustus nor Goethe's verse drama, the script scrambles various elements of the legend and presents a Faust (Gosta Ekman) driven to summon the Devil by despair as a plague rages through the town, desperate to gain enough learning to help his neighbours. When this deal doesn't quite work out, because he is stoned by townsfolk who notice his sudden fear of the cross, Mephisto (Emil Jannings) offers Faust instead renewed youth and an opportunity to seduce a famously beautiful Italian noblewoman and then to return to his home village and get involved with the pure Gretchen (Camilla Horn). Like most versions of the story, it's episodic and some sections are stronger than others: the great stuff comes in the plague and initial deal sequences, though it picks up again for the tragic climax as Gretchen becomes the central figure and suffers horribly, freezing in the snows and burning at the stake. Jannings' devil, a gruesomely humorous slice of ham, is one of the great silent monster performances, reducing everyone else to a stick figure, and Murnau faces the challenge of topping his Nosferatu imagery by deploying a battalion of effects techniques to depict the many magical journeys, sudden appearances and transformations. On the DVD: Often seen in ragged, incomplete prints projected at the wrong speed, this is a decently restored version, running a full 115 minutes with a complete orchestral score. The original materials show some of the damage to be expected in a film of its vintage, but the transfer is excellent, displaying the imaginative art direction and camerawork to superb advantage. Aside from a nicely eerie menu, the sole extra is a full-length commentary originating in Australia: written by historian Peter Spooner but read by narrator Russell Cawthorne (who mispronounces the odd name). This provides an interesting wealth of background detail, such as Murnau's attempt to cast Hollywood's Lillian Gish as Gretchen, and delivers a balanced assessment of the film itself. [+]

When Inspector Morse first appeared on television in 1987, nobody could have predicted that it would run into the next century, maintaining throughout a quality of scripts and storylines that raised the genre of the detective series to a new level. Much of its success can be attributed to John Thaw's total immersion in the role. Morse is a prickly character and not obviously easy to like. As a detective in Oxford with unfulfilled academic propensities, he is permanently excluded from a world of which he would dearly love to be a part. He is at odds with that world-and with his colleagues in the police force-most of the time. Passionate about opera and "proper beer", he is a cultural snob for whom vulgarity causes almost physical pain. As a result, he lives from one disillusionment to the next. And he is scarred-more deeply than he would ever admit-by past relationships. But he also has a naïve streak and, deep down, sensitivity, which makes him a fascinating challenge for women. At the heart of Morse's professional life is his awkward partnership with Detective Sergeant Lewis, the resolutely ordinary, worldly sidekick who manages to keep his boss in an almost permanent state of exasperation while retaining his grudging respect. [+]

With enough lively banter to keep its customers happy for years, Barbershop is a loose, lanky comedy with its heart-and its humour-in all the right places. Ice Cube plays Calvin, reluctant heir to his late father's barbershop on Chicago's South Side-a neighbourhood institution that seems like a trap for a guy with bigger dreams. But Calvin is devoted to his employees and local customers, and when he makes an ill-considered deal with a loan shark (Keith David), the future of the barbershop hangs in the balance. There's a goofy subplot involving a stolen cash machine, but what gives Barbershop its abundant charm is its compassionate, feel-good vibe for its likable characters-not just scene-stealer Cedric the Entertainer (as Eddie the veteran barber, whose shaving lesson is a shining pearl of wisdom), but the entire well-chosen cast. It may seem like a lot of casual rap, but look and listen closely, and Barbershop will reward you with its danceable rhythms of life. -Jeff Shannon.

Most people didn't mind Gwyneth Paltrow's English accent in this charming, 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel (which also inspired Clueless). But even if it doesn't sound quite right to you, there are plenty of authentic and wonderful Brit thespians in this film by screenwriter-turned-director Douglas McGrath (co-author of Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway), including Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply), Alan Cumming (Buddy), Phyllida Law (Much Ado About Nothing), Ewan McGregor (the Scots star of Trainspotting) and Sophie Thompson, outstanding and finally heartbreaking as the chattering Miss Bates. Paltrow plays Austen's benign busybody, Emma Woodhouse-so busy trying to arrange the lives of others that she is sidestepping her own. McGrath brings a kind of pretty and light touch to the production, his best move the wise delegation of creative authority to the actors themselves. -Tom Keogh Most people didn't mind Gwyneth Paltrow's English accent in this charming 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma. There are also plenty of authentic and wonderful Brit thespians in this film by screenwriter-turned-director Douglas McGrath (co-author of Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway), including Juliet Stevenson (Truly Madly Deeply), Phyllida Law (Much Ado About Nothing), Ewan McGregor and Sophie Thompson who offers an outstanding and finally heartbreaking turn as the chattering Miss Bates. Paltrow plays Austen's benign busybody, Emma Woodhouse-so busy trying to arrange the lives of others that she is sidestepping her own. McGrath brings a kind of pretty and light touch to the production; his best move the wise delegation of creative authority to the actors themselves. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com Emma Thompson scores a double bull's-eye with this marvellous adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. [+]

Much criticised on its first appearance as spectacle without affect, Nikita Mikhalkov's The Barber of Siberia is a fascinating, loopy mess worth seeing for its large-scale set pieces and good central performances. The Barber of Siberia was the most expensive film ever made in Russia, with its epic sweeps of landscape and scenes of disorder and drunkenness that remind us what lurked under the superficial structures of late-Tsarist life. Jane Callaghan (Julia Ormond) is an adventurer hired to smooth the way for McCracken (Richard Harris), inventor of a vast tree-felling machine. She blunders around a world of aristocratic influence and intrigue, having become so used to cunning and deceit that she has forgotten she has a heart. Andrei (Oleg Menshikov) is the military cadet whom she meets on the train going east, an aesthete and chancer whose love for her in the face of all the her good sense finally becomes tragic. Menshikov is convincing as lover, buffoon and tragic hero. -Roz Kaveney.

A young man, short of money, is persuaded into looking after the business of a local drug dealer for a week or two. Up until then, the guy had been an honest and clean of drugs, but when he spends his days surrounded by riches and drugs, he cannot resist. and neither can his addict wife. robby benson(also directs),danny aiello,tawny kitaen. very good condition.

Hollywood's legendary "woman's director," George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry of Cukor's set, but it also underscores a certain visual stiffness that can slow viewer enthusiasm just a tad. But it's really star wattage that keeps this film exciting, that and such great songs as "On the Street Where You Live" and "I Could Have Danced All Night. " Actor Jeremy Brett, who gained a huge following later in life portraying Sherlock Holmes, is quite electric as Eliza's determined suitor. -Tom Keogh Hollywood's legendary "woman's director," George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. Star wattage keeps this film exciting, that and such great songs as "On the Street Where You Live" and "I Could Have Danced All Night. " Actor Jeremy Brett, who gained a huge following later in life portraying Sherlock Holmes, is quite electric as Eliza's determined suitor. -Tom Keogh.