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The Painted Veil
Starring: Naomi Watts , Edward Norton , Liev Schreiber , Toby Jones , and Diana Rigg Director: John Curran (II) Manufacturer: Warner Home Video ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000NOIX48 Release Date: 2007-05-08 |
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Produced by Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil works well as a movie--even better as an actor's showcase. The year is 1925. When her domineering mother pressures her to marry, Kitty (Watts) settles for shy bacteriologist Walter (Norton). Then Walter is transferred from London to Shanghai and the lonely and bored Kitty drifts into an affair with married diplomat Charlie (Liev Schreiber). When Walter finds out, he makes a startling proposition: either Kitty accompanies him to the cholera-infested countryside or he'll divorce her. With no other prospects, she comes along on what looks like a double-suicide mission. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil was adapted by Philadelphia's Ron Nyswaner (who knows a little something about infectious diseases). As two previous versions made little impact--despite Garbo's presence in the 1934 melodrama--John Curran's film is sure to stand as definitive. Interestingly, Norton, who studied Chinese history at Yale, chose Watts as his co-star, while Watts chose Curran, for whom she appeared in 2004's underrated We Don't Live Here Anymore. Filmed on location, the handsome production is, in many respects, just as old-fashioned as its source material--sex is merely suggested and Kitty is shocked that their English neighbor (Toby Jones) has a Chinese lover--but the ending packs a feminist twist. Mostly though, The Painted Veil is about the acting, and Watts and Norton, along with Diana Rigg as a disillusioned Mother Superior, have rarely been better. --Kathleen C. FennessyDescription
Based on the classic novel by W. Somerset Maugham, "The Painted Veil" is a love story set in the 1920s that tells the story of a young English couple, Walter, a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman, who get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along. Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.
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Shirley Valentine
Starring: Pauline Collins , Tom Conti , Julia McKenzie , Alison Steadman , and Joanna Lumley Director: Lewis Gilbert (II) Manufacturer: Paramount ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000MGBSIU Release Date: 2007-05-01 |
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British actress Pauline Collins repeats her stage success as the character Shirley Valentine, a married woman who decides in her middle years that she wants more out of life. Leaving her spouse behind, she heads to Greece, where she grows close to a low-key, local bloke (Tom Conti). Collins and director Lewis Gilbert (Educating Rita) choose to let the character, as she did in the play, speak directly to the audience at times, and the gamble works in terms of creating a gentle, intimate atmosphere. Conti is a bonus, a warm presence and funny to boot. --Tom KeoghStills from Shirley Valentine (click for larger image)
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Product Description
In the role that won her Broadway's acclaimed Tony Award, Pauline Collins is the hilariously endearing Shirley Valentine, a wisecracking, completely unpredictable English housewife who proves it's never too late to recapture your dreams. Bored with her suburban life, Shirley takes a chance on adventure when a friend invites her on a vacation to Greece. Within no time she's back to her rebellious teenage roots, saying yes to a wild fling with a handsome rogue (Tom Conti) and the life she's always wanted.
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Notes on a Scandal
Starring: Judi Dench , Cate Blanchett , Tom Georgeson , Michael Maloney , and Joanna Scanlan Director: Richard Eyre Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000NIVJFY Release Date: 2007-04-17 |
Amazon.com
Gold stars to all for this taut psychological thriller based on Zoe Heller's novel that that gets more insidiously twisted as it unfolds. Oscar-nominated for her chilling performance, Dame Judi Dench gives a master class as schoolteacher Barbara Covett, a frumpy, friendless, and flinty spinster who lives with her cat. A formidable presence, Barbara is standoffish with colleagues and not one for students to trifle with (not that they'd dare). Cate Blanchett, also an Oscar nominee and winner of several critics society awards for her impassioned performance, costars as Sheba Hart, the new, overwhelmed art teacher who first becomes enthrall to Barbara after she steps in to help Sheba discipline unruly students. Barbara cultivates a friendship, and insinuates herself into Sheba's chaotic life, which includes her older husband (Bill Nighy), teenage daughter, and a son with Down's syndrome. Then, Barbara catches the reckless Sheba in a compromising position with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson). Seizing her opportunity, the calculating Barbara does not turn her in. Rather, she wants to "help" her. "She's the one I've been waiting for," she writes in the journals she meticulously keeps, and which provide, in voiceover, her corrosive commentary. This all sounds very Fatal Attraction, but no boiling rabbits, please; we're British. Philip Glass's Oscar-nominated score accentuates the growing menace. Though there is little in these characters to admire, (one would think GLAAD would have something to say about the predatory turn Barbara's character takes), Notes on a Scandal is a compelling tour-de-force for its Grade-A cast. --Donald Liebenson
Notes on a Scandal Extras
Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench on their characters in the film |
Beyond Notes on a Scandal
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Book to Movie Adaptations |
More Cate Blanchett Films |
What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal: A Novel |
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Description
Academy Award(r) winners Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett give wickedly entertaining, Oscar-nominated performances * ? one as a woman consumed by her colleague's guilty secret, the other, a victim to her own dark obsessions ? in this sexy, stylish thriller. Dench mesmerizes as Barbara Covett, a teacher who rules over her classroom with an iron fist, yet leads a desperate, solitary life outside it. That is, until she meets radiant new art teacher Sheba Hart (Blanchett). Although at first overjoyed with her newfound kindred spirit, when Barbara discovers that Sheba is having an affair with a teenage student, her jealously and rage spiral out of control.
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Little Children
Starring: Kate Winslet , Patrick Wilson , Jennifer Connelly , Gregg Edelman , and Sadie Goldstein Director: Todd Field Manufacturer: New Line Home Video ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000N3SU92 Release Date: 2007-05-01 |
Amazon.com
Kate Winslet operates at a galaxy-class level in Little Children, Todd Field's gratifyingly grown-up look at unhappy suburbia. Winslet is magnificent, in an Oscar-nominated performance, as a stroller-pushing mom who becomes attracted to a passive househusband (Patrick Wilson). Their slow-burning infidelity (Field wisely allows time to pass in this unhurried film) is contrasted with a more sensational subplot, about a convicted pedophile (Jackie Earle Haley, also Oscar nominated) returning to the neighborhood to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville). Field, who brought his civilized approach to In the Bedroom, uses a deliberately literary style here, including a device with a narrator who sounds as though he's sitting at our side as he reads from Tom Perotta's novel. (The narrator is a superb touch--his cultivated voice distances us from the sloppy passions of the characters.) The film's biggest miscalculation is a self-appointed neighborhood vigilante (Noah Emmerich) determined to make life miserable for the pedophile. But Wilson is appropriately nebulous, Jennifer Connelly solid as his wife, and Haley (child star of the Bad News Bears movies), as the creepy, childlike molester, found himself rediscovered after a long career layoff. There's decent acting here, but Winslet is in a zone of her own, with so much emotional honesty and subtlety of expression that she transforms a good movie into a must-see. --Robert HortonDescription
Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson star in the Academy Award nominated film Little Children, the latest work from Oscar-nominated writer/director Todd Field. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Little Children centers on a handful of middle-class suburban parents whose lives unravel in the wake of an adulterous affair.
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Love Actually (Widescreen Edition)
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor , Colin Firth , Gregor Fisher , Martin Freeman (II) , and Jill Freud Manufacturer: Universal Studios ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B00005JMFQ Release Date: 2004-04-27 |
Product Description
"Get ready for fun!" (Leah Rozen, People) with the "feel good movie of the year!" (Clay Smith, Access Hollywood) Love Actually is the ultimate romantic comedy from the makers of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill. Funny, irresistible and heartwarming, an all-star cast (Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth and Emma Thompson, to name a few!) will take you on a breathtaking tour of love's delightful twists and turns. Fall under the spell of Love Actually and share the laughs and charm again and again.Amazon.com
With no fewer than eight couples vying for our attention, Love Actually is like the Boston Marathon of romantic comedies, and everybody wins. Having mastered the genre as the writer of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones's Diary, it appears that first-time director Richard Curtis is just like his screenplays: He just wants to be loved, and he'll go to absurdly appealing lengths to win our affection. With Love Actually, Curtis orchestrates a minor miracle of romantic choreography, guiding a brilliant cast of stars and newcomers as they careen toward love and holiday cheer in London, among them the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) who's smitten with his caterer; a widower (Liam Neeson) whose young son nurses the ultimate schoolboy crush; a writer (Colin Firth) who falls for his Portuguese housekeeper; a devoted wife and mother (Emma Thompson) coping with her potentially unfaithful husband (Alan Rickman); and a lovelorn American (Laura Linney) who's desperately attracted to a colleague. There's more--too much more--as Curtis wraps his Christmas gift with enough happy endings to sweeten a dozen other movies. That he pulls it off so entertainingly is undeniably impressive; that he does it so shamelessly suggests that his writing fares better with other, less ingratiating directors. --Jeff Shannon
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Out of Africa
Starring: Meryl Streep , Robert Redford , Klaus Maria Brandauer , Michael Kitchen , and Malick Bowens Director: Sydney Pollack Manufacturer: Universal Studios ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: 0783240171 Release Date: 2000-02-29 |
Amazon.com essential video
Sydney Pollack's 1985 multiple-Oscar winner is a sumptuous and emotionally satisfying film about the life of Danish writer Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep), better known as Isak Dinesen, who travels to Kenya to be with her German husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer) but falls for an English adventurer (Robert Redford). The film is slow in developing the relationship, but it is rich in beautiful images of Africa and in the romantic tone surrounding Blixen's gradual discovery of her life and voice. One downside: while we may all love Redford, he is as convincingly British as Kevin Costner is in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. --Tom KeoghDescription
The most acclaimed motion picture of 1985 stars Robert Redford and Meryl Streep in one of the screen's great epic romances. Directed by Oscar winner Sydney Pollack, Out of Africa is the fascinating true story of Karen Blixen, a strong-willed woman who, with her philandering husband (Klaus Maria Brandauer), runs a coffee plantation in Kenya, circa 1914. To her astonishment, she soon discovers herself falling in love with the land, its people and a mysterious white hunter (Redford). The masterfully crafted, breathtakingly produced story of love and loss earned Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay (based on material from another medium), Cinematography, Original Score, Art Direction (Set Decoration) and Sound.
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Chinatown
Starring: Richard Bakalyan , Faye Dunaway , Jerry Fujikawa , Bruce Glover , and John Hillerman Manufacturer: Paramount ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000022TSH Release Date: 1999-11-23 |
Amazon.com essential video
Roman Polanski's brooding film noir exposes the darkest side of the land of sunshine, the Los Angeles of the 1930s, where power is the only currency--and the only real thing worth buying. Jack Nicholson is J.J. Gittes, a private eye in the Chandler mold, who during a routine straying-spouse investigation finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into a jigsaw puzzle of clues and corruption. The glamorous Evelyn Mulwray (a dazzling Faye Dunaway) and her titanic father, Noah Cross (John Huston), are at the black-hole center of this tale of treachery, incest, and political bribery. The crackling, hard-bitten script by Robert Towne won a well-deserved Oscar, and the muted color cinematography makes the goings-on seem both bleak and impossibly vibrant. Polanski himself has a brief, memorable cameo as the thug who tangles with Nicholson's nose. One of the greatest, most completely satisfying crime films of all time. --Anne Hurley
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The Graduate
Starring: Anne Bancroft , Dustin Hoffman , Katharine Ross , William Daniels , and Murray Hamilton Director: Mike Nichols Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD) ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B00079Z9VO Release Date: 2005-04-05 |
Amazon.com essential video
Few films have defined a generation as The Graduate did. The alienation, the nonconformity, the intergenerational romance, the blissful Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack--they all served to lob a cultural grenade smack into the middle of 1967 America, ultimately making the film the third most profitable up to that time. Seen from a later perspective, its radical chicness has dimmed a bit, yet it's still a joy to see Dustin Hoffman's bemused Benjamin and Anne Bancroft's deliciously decadent, sardonic Mrs. Robinson. The script by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham is still offbeat and dryly funny, and Mike Nichols, who won an Oscar for his direction, has just the right, light touch. --Anne HurleyDescription
Nominated* for seven Academy Awards® and winner for Best Director, this groundbreaking and "wildly hilarious" (The Boston Globe) social satire launched the career of two-time Oscar®-winner** Dustin Hoffman and cemented the reputation of acclaimed director Mike Nichols. Pulsating with the rebellious spirit of the '60s and a haunting score sung by Simon and Garfunkel, The Graduate is truly a "landmark film" (Leonard Maltin). Shy Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) returns home from college with an uncertain future. Then the wife of his father's business partner, the sexy Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), seduces him, and the affair only deepens his confusion. That is, until he meets the girl of his dreams (Katharine Ross). But there's one problem: she's Mrs. Robinson's daughter!*1967: Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actress (Katharine Ross), Cinematography and Adapted Screenplay
**1988: Actor, Rain Man; 1979: Actor, Kramer vs. Kramer
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A Summer Place
Starring: Richard Egan , Dorothy McGuire , Sandra Dee , Arthur Kennedy , and Troy Donahue Director: Delmer Daves Manufacturer: Warner Home Video ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000JU8HBA Release Date: 2007-02-06 |
Amazon.com
Think A Summer Place, and you'll probably be humming Max Steiner's wonderfully romantic instrumental theme song, a hand-holding hit in 1959. The movie itself is similarly irresistible, a colorful soap opera about the passions of a pair of dewy-eyed teens and their straying parents. At an island resort in Maine, Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue (the reigning teen idols of the day) fall hard for each other. What they don't know is that her father (Richard Egan) and his mother (Dorothy McGuire), lovers 20 years earlier, have rekindled their affair. Both, inconveniently, have spouses, which is what makes this a soap opera. Lovers of camp will find much to savor in the incredible '50s attitudes, and in the innocence of supervirgin Dee ("Johnny, have you been bad with girls?"). Yet the sincerity of writer-director Delmer Daves, cowriter of An Affair to Remember, comes shining through the corn; and the grown-up affair anticipates The Bridges of Madison County by 30 years. --Robert HortonDescription
Illicit romance take center stage when a wealthy family set off for a summer seaside vacation.
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Curse of the Golden Flower
Starring: Yun-Fat Chow , Li Gong , Jay Chou , Ye Liu , and Dahong Ni Director: Yimou Zhang Manufacturer: Sony Pictures ProductGroup: DVD Binding: DVD Similar Items:
ASIN: B000MRA592 Release Date: 2007-03-27 |
Amazon.com
Curse of the Golden Flower, a fictionalized historical glimpse into the brutally complicated politics of Emperor Ping's (Chow Yun Fat) reign during the Tang Dynasty, shows the viewer just how far a megalomaniac must go to gain and retain power in medieval China. Lavish sets, massive ceremonial displays, and perversely fascinating battle scenes impress similarly to the special effects Americans have come to love and expect from Chinese action films like Zhang Yimou's previous House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. An intricate plot involving the Emperor's wife, Empress Phoenix (Gong Li) and their three sons, Crown Prince Xiang, Prince Jie, and Prince Cheng, most closely follows the Empress's secret plan to force abdication upon her corrupt husband as revenge for his slowly poisoning her with Black Fungus tea. Opening on the eve of the Chysanthemum Festival, 928 A.D., the Empress obsessively embroiders gold chysanthemums to adorn her army's uniforms while hatching plans with Jai to overthrow the Crown Prince for control of the throne. Meanwhile, a side plot develops as the Emperor's ex-wife and mother to Crown Prince Yu reemerges as Yu's lover. By the time the Festival occurs, family members are pitted against each other in a King Lear-ian web of lies that can only result in demise. The most sophisticated narrative aspect of Curse of the Golden Flower is that as the royal family crumbles, the Emperor's death grip on China remains unwavering. Gorgeous scenes set in the palace and costume design displaying China's upper class decadence cannot fail to entertain. The paradox between good and evil, here, is highlighted by how the Emperor successfully rules despite, and because of, his utter cruelty. --Trinie DaltonDVD:
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