Trench

Starring:Paul Nicholls, Daniel Craig, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Danny Dyer, James D'Arcy, Tam Williams, Anthony Strachan, Michael Moreland, Adrian Lukis, CiarĂ¡n McMenamin, Cillian Murphy, John Higgins, Ben Whishaw, Tim Murphy, Danny Nutt, Charles Cartmell, Tom Mullion, Jenny Pickering, Tom Silburn, Dahren Davey
Director: William Boyd (II)
Studio: Bfs Entertainment
Product Type: DVD
Editorial Review:
Description
Stuck in their putrid, claustrophobic trench, 17-year-old Billy Macfarlane and his mates desperately try to distract themselves from what is rapidly approaching - by whatever means necessary. Only a short time ago, these brash young men had raced to sign up and fight the Kaiser. Now, with the countdown to war ticking away, the awful truth of what they are about to encounter begins to sink in. Surrounded by snipers and with the artillery barrage thundering constantly overhead, the war is closing in around them. When the order finally comes to fix bayonets and clamber over the top, these frightened soldiers are forced out of the trench and into a hellish maelstrom of smoke, blood and destiny. Who will survive? Who will wish they had not?
Average customer rating:
- Really good horror flick!
- Nice Attempt
- VERY SCARY AND FRESH!
- ENDING OUT OF THIS WORLD
- Vengeance
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The Ring (Widescreen Edition)
Starring: Jane Alexander , Alan Blumenfeld , Keith Campbell , Gary Cervantes , and Joseph Chrest
Manufacturer: Dreamworks Video
ProductGroup: DVD
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Similar Items:
- The Ring Two (Unrated Widescreen Edition)
- The Grudge
- Saw - Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition)
- Gothika (Widescreen Edition)
- Final Destination (New Line Platinum Series)
ASIN: B00005JLTK
Release Date: 2003-03-04 |
Amazon.com
With its disturbing images and a few good shocks, The Ring is the kind of frightfest you'll watch to set a chilling mood or spook your susceptible friends, but when you try to sort it out, this well-mounted American remake (of the 1998 Japanese hit Ringu, based on Koji Suzuki's popular novel) becomes a batch of incoherent parts. The negligible plot follows a Seattle reporter (Naomi Watts) as she investigates the death of her niece, the victim of a mysterious videotape that, according to urban legend, causes the viewer's death seven days later. (Fear Dot Com borrowed the same idea while avoiding this film's lofty pretensions.) The countdown structure follows the reporter, her son, and her estranged boyfriend into deepening layers of terror--all quite effective until the movie attempts to explain itself. At that you're better off shutting down your brain and letting the creepy visuals take over. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Really good horror flick!.......2007-06-10
Whether you like horror films or not, you'll LOVE this movie. This is more of a puzzle, whodoneit-type movie than a typical horror movie.
So what's this movie about? Rachel Keller investigates the death of her niece when she learns that her death may have been caused by a tape. Yes, a tape. Apparently, when you watch this particular tape, you receive a phone call that lets you know that you will die in 7 days. Scary, huh? Though it may not sound all that scary, each scene will send chills down your spine when Rachel begins to put together this puzzle that will explain why this tape exists and how she can stop it from killing more people (including her son).
What's to like about this movie? As I said above, this movie will pull you in with every scene. It will have you guessing and reguessing. What makes a good scary movie is not just the killing or the surprising scenes or creepy guys. Scary movies also need to have a bit of mystery in order for it be any good. And THIS is a good movie. Not to mention that Naomi Watts is in it and her acting in this movie is great.
What's not to like? Not much. The swearing and drug talk can be a negative to some people but that's the only thing that I can find remotely bad about this movie.
Watch this movie! You'll really like it!
Nice Attempt.......2007-04-11
This is an American version of a Japanese film based upon a comic. Unlike The Grudge, which was directed by the same director as the Japanese version, this is a very different story from the Japanese (although there is a quick reference to the Japanese version).
There is a rumor of a videotape that can kill people. If you watch it you will get a phone call and be told you will die in seven days. When a reporter's niece dies the reporter starts to look into the story. First she finds out her niece had a secret boyfriend. Then she finds out the boyfriend died at the same moment as the niece. There is definitely something strange going on. As the reporter digs through the story she discovers others died at the same time. Then she learns about, and finds, the videotape. She watches it before believing it.
But soon the reporter does believe, but not before showing it to her ex. She starts to become frantic with trying to find a way to break the curse and that means learning more about it. But when her son watches the videotape she really begins to panic. Now she not only has to solve the mystery for herself, but for her son. Her son seems to have some connection to the video and its images and it somehow revolves around a young girl. It becomes a race against time and the reporter finds a way she thinks will stop the curse. Will she succeed? Will she save the ones she loves? Watch and find out.
The videotape in Ringu makes more sense to me than the one here but the story has been rewritten in such a way as to make it work. Here we have a film that kept the core of the original (the videotape, the ring, and the force behind the curse) and recrafted it into more than just an adaptation. I found this film to be far better than I had thought it would be. A pretty good and creepy film. Check it out.
VERY SCARY AND FRESH!.......2007-03-26
Its nice to see a different horror film these days. I thought this movie was pretty spooky and held my interest from beginning to end. The DVD transfer is excellent. This is a fresh idea for the horror genre.
ENDING OUT OF THIS WORLD.......2007-03-21
THIS IS NOT UR AVERAGE RUN OF THE MILL HORROR FILM....I AM A FANATIC WHEN IT COMES TO HORROR FILMS AND HAVE FELT FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS THAT THE MOVIES THAT ARE BEING FILMED AND DIRECTED HAVE BEEN BASICALLY A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!I MEAN PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY READING THESE SCRIPTS AND FINANCING THEM MUCH TO MY SURPRISE. BUT THIS GEM OF A MOVIE ACTUALLY FREAKED ME OUT. I HAD NOT BEEN SO FREAKED SINCE I DONT KNOW.....CANDYMAN? AND THAT MOVIE HAD GIVEN ME MY FIRST NIGHTMARE IN YRS. I HAD NOT HAD ONE SINCE THE ORIGINAL NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST WAS RELEASED. AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING. BUT ANYWAYS THIS MOVIE IS DEFINITELY A MIND F***. I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE WHO IS HIGHLY SENSITIVE OR EASILY FRIGHTENED TO WATCH THIS MOVIE ALONE IN THE DARK....AND THE ENDING....I HAVE NEVER HEARD SO MUCH SCREAMING AND SO MANY OBSENTITIES FILL A THEATRE LIKE IT DID AT THIS MOVIES SHOWING,(AND I WAS DEFINITLEY ONE OF THE PEOPLE CURSING AT THE SHEER GENIOUS OF THE CREATOR0)...CUDOS! I MEAN REALLY TO THINK SOMETHING HAS ENDED LIKE ANY OTHER MOVIE, HURRAY THE HEROIN SAVES THE DAYM, THE SPIRIT HAS BEEN SET FREE, LAID TO REST, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH. AND THEN TO HAVE UR WHOLE WORLD JUST RIPPED RIGHT FROM UNDER YOU IS LIKE THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD....CUZ UR EXPECTING THE SAME OLD ENDING AND TO HAVE IT TOTALLY FLIPPED ON YOU IS JUST REFRESHING AND GAVE ME A BIT OF HOPE FOR FUTURE FILMS...
I WAS A BIT SKEPTICAL ABT THE SEQUEL. ALTHOUGH I WAS HOPING FOR MORE CLARITY ON THE CHARACTER OF SAMARA, I WAS EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED BUT NOT SURPRISED. THERE ARE FEW FILMS THAT CAN SAY THE SEQUEL LIVED UP TO THE ORIGINAL....HOPE MY REVIEW HELPS SOME OF YOU DECIDE TO IF NOT BUY THIS MOVIE DEFINITELY RENT....
Vengeance .......2007-02-15
Samara will kill you. The child's psychological state of mind may be viewed as insane but her nature clearly reflects what human nature in general is like. When someone has ****you up, you must retailate. To not do so, would mean that you're allowing yourself to be toyed with. Superb horror with depth but the first one had a much deeper meaning as its main goal was to introduce us to "Samara"-Everthing about her childhood experiences and her past. Like the past, present, and future, people and things changed, but nevertheless, your core self is still the same.
I actually liked this first one because it is more deeper and symbolic. The second one is okay but not as good as the first one.
Average customer rating:
- The Trench
- Pretty Bad!!
- Well-intentioned but inept
- for what it is, it was pretty good
- Slice of life; doom without much homomasculine drama
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Trench
Starring: Paul Nicholls , Daniel Craig , Julian Rhind-Tutt , Danny Dyer , and James D'Arcy
Director: William Boyd (II)
Manufacturer: Bfs Entertainment
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ASIN: B00007AJDM
Release Date: 2003-03-18 |
Description
Stuck in their putrid, claustrophobic trench, 17-year-old Billy Macfarlane and his mates desperately try to distract themselves from what is rapidly approaching - by whatever means necessary. Only a short time ago, these brash young men had raced to sign up and fight the Kaiser. Now, with the countdown to war ticking away, the awful truth of what they are about to encounter begins to sink in. Surrounded by snipers and with the artillery barrage thundering constantly overhead, the war is closing in around them. When the order finally comes to fix bayonets and clamber over the top, these frightened soldiers are forced out of the trench and into a hellish maelstrom of smoke, blood and destiny. Who will survive? Who will wish they had not?
Customer Reviews:
The Trench.......2007-01-04
If you like World War one, you will enjoy this title, but if you are into a real historic view of Trench warfare you will find faults. Acting is solid, but the sets are too clean,even for early in the war. This production seems more stage play, than movie. If you can rent it first, see it before you decide to buy it.
Pretty Bad!!.......2006-06-24
The expectations for this film embraced the word, "epic," but all-in-all, this one missed the boat by orders of magnitude. As a film that was likely intended to show the "reality" of life during trench warfare in World War I, it is an utter failure. SO many missed opportunities here! This film came about as close to accurately portraying trench warfare as "Apocalypse Now" did in accurately describing the Vietnam War, which was positively ludicrous. In fact, this film is so bad that it makes the very limited combat scenes and trench warfare vignettes in "Sergeant York" look like an epic.
Well-intentioned but inept.......2005-07-03
It's heart might be in the right place, but this tepid misfire looks like a bad TV schools production in every way. The 'exteriors' are obviously interior studio sets, and not very convincing ones. It's so badly lit that when the film finally goes outdoors to rip off the end of Gallipoli (which it does incredibly badly, like everything else) the change of film stock is so jarring it hurts.
The characters are childish stereotypes talking in unbelievable clichés and the film is frequently just plain wrong about details and attitudes of the average WW1 Tommy: politically correct, maybe, but historically it's a travesty (no Mr Boyd, officers DID go over the top: the highest percentage of casualties was officers, and even many generals died in battle).
But more than being badly directed, looking cheap, getting its facts wrong and going with every cliché Boyd can find, it's biggest sin is that it's just so bloody boring. Bad on every level.
WW1 was a terrible tragedy, and those who died in it deserve better than this terrible, terrible film.
for what it is, it was pretty good.......2005-02-10
Reading the other reviews here, I had to post one myself to defend it. The movie has its problems, but some of the complaints are unjustified.
To say the ending was a rip-off of some other war movie is just silly -- how else could it have ended? This was the Somme. You don't make a movie about the first day of the Somme if you want anything other than a massacre.
To the person complaining about No Man's Land being a grassy meadow. There was a place called Serre where the attacking British DID cross a grassy meadow. The grass was so long, as the wounded men fell, some of the others thought there'd been an order to get down, and so they did too, only to find the others wounded or dead.
To the guy complaining about the lack of homoerotic content, all I can say is, oh well. Not everything's always about sex.
Movies about battles like this, you can look at from a big picture perspective or you can zoom in for a close look at a group of individuals. This movie goes for the close-up. It's not trying to be anything else. This is a movie about the strain of the long hours waiting for a major offensive to begin, for a bunch of young guys, most of whom were new to the war. It's dumb to criticize it for failing to be something else. I thought it did a pretty good job of portraying the situation. The boredom, the fear, how difficult it would be to sleep or eat or turn off your brain during those long hours. The ways the men might snipe at one another over little things due to frayed nerves. The relationship between the men, the sergeant and the lieutenant was subtle but I think well-done.
My complaints are that it goes about a half hour too long. The trench looked mighty tidy to me too. I had trouble believing that a shell big enough to blow 2 men to bits wouldn't have done more damage to the structure of the trench there.
Also most of these guys would have known each other from civilian life; the British army had a lot of "Pals Battalions" where guys from the same village or area joined up and served together. Most of these guys should have known one another.
I am pretty sure I saw a guy light a cigarette with a Bic-type lighter and I'm pretty sure they would not have had something like that.
I think for a look at "trench life" for a bunch of newbies about to go over the top for the first time, it was pretty good.
Slice of life; doom without much homomasculine drama.......2004-12-20
This movie seemed like a filmed stage play from an off-Broadway experimental theater in the 1960s. This does not mean it is a bad drama, but that its classical unities of time, place, and action are theatrical rather than filmic. The characters are the same stock characters always found in war movies from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Platoon." In fact, one of its sniper scenes is straight out of the last scene in "All Quiet."
This does not mean it is bad so much as it means that without explosive action the military genre becomes a talkfest--in this case between teenagers who don't know each other and therefore have not much to say. In the 60s, plays like this cozied up to homosexuality, which "Trench" fails to do, even though the film stars gay icon Daniel Craig who is the calling card in the cast.
[...]
Anyway, this mise en scene happens years after Walt Whitman and his revealing Calamus soldier poems, and a few years after "Mrs. Dalloway" and "Gods and Monsters" did "takes" on gay men fighting WWI.
Also we are now in, hello, the 21st century when the love that dare not speak its name fairly shouts and it's time to present the unspoken past of WWI and its buried soldier-lovers. Such a tactic would, at least, have given the plotless plot some edge. If same-period "Maurice" could show same-sex lovers, then why not uncloset these lives in the trenches? These homomasculine buddy-buddy war stories of chums who enlist together, train together, fight together, die together are coming even out of Iraq.
As presented, the film channels all of its anxieties about love and death and comradeship into huge amounts of smoking where inhaling means one thing and exhaling means another and lighting a match means everything. If this had been a non-smoking "Trench," there would have been no stage business at all.
The whole film is lensed in a virtual general shot. Too bad. Some close-ups would have helped, particularly of Daniel Craig, whose eyes deserve two Academy Awards.
All in all, if you like theater, you may enjoy the one-dimensial "Trench," but accept it for what it is. Don't fault it because it is not a high-budget action film. For fun, do a double feature of "Trench" with "Lafayette Escadrille" which is also a little known WWI film full of very handsome, very blond men.
Average customer rating:
- Oliver Comes "Home"
- Never better!
- The Little Blue Boy Plays The Artful Dodger
- oliver1997
- Strictly for Elijah Wood Fans
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Oliver Twist (1997)
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss , Elijah Wood , David O'Hara , Alex Trench , and Antoine Byrne
Director: Tony Bill
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- Paradise
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ASIN: B0001I55TC
Release Date: 2004-08-03 |
Description
The popular Dickens classic comes to life as never before with an all-star cast including Richard Dreyfuss (MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS) as the notorious Fagin, and Elijah Wood (THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy) as The Artful Dodger. Set in bustling 19th-century England, the story follows the journey of young Oliver Twist, a poor orphan who dares to ask for something more. Oliver soon finds himself on the streets of London, and gets caught for a crime he didn't commit. Experience this sweeping tale of loyalty, greed, and compassion that is sure to win the hearts of your entire family!
Customer Reviews:
Oliver Comes "Home".......2007-06-13
I would give this review 3 1/2 stars if I could, but I've got to settle on a tentative 4. This is maybe the best family film based on Dicken's classic story of Oliver. With excessive characters and side-plots done away with in recrafting the main plot, it's less dense without being too fluffy, and it's gritty enough without being (as the novel is, at times) frighteningly violent. Most of the actors carry their parts well, except for the man who played as Bill Sykes, and the child actor who played as Oliver. Elijah Wood did good acting, with his facial expressions and body-language delivering the right emotions at the right time, and though his accent wasn't the most brilliant I've ever heard, he was entirely consistent in his usage of it, which is saying a lot! He fell short, due to misguided directing, of living up to the name of "Artful Dodger". It was very, very silly to have him leading around such a huge band of little theives. In real life, they would have made the police suspicious and been arrested within an hour . . . but that wasn't Wood's fault. In the book Fagin sent the boys out in either alone or in small groups. The Artful and Charley Bates were a twosome, and then when Oliver joined them they were a trio -- and the Artful always made sure they remained inconspicuous. As for Sykes, this movie's interpretation of him was so cartoonish it was all but laughable. Sykes in the book was less ranting and more cruely sarcastic, less of a raving hot-head and more coldly menacing. Though he often was hysterically violent, the creepy thing about him was that his *bite* was always worse than his *bark*. Fagin is a lost cause -- he is not Dicken's Fagin. But the actor carried well the part of the Fagin custom-made for this movie. The one thing that should definately have been changed was the potrayel of Oliver: the child actor who played him was as composed in all the filth and violence as a school-boy who just stepped off the bus.
Never better!.......2006-11-09
Wow! I'm speechless! What a great film! I was so happy to see this movie. Now for the characters... Richard Dreyfus made a great Fagin. He was very funny. Antoine Byrne was ssssssssssssooooooooooo great for Nancy. Totaly perfect. She made a splendid Nancy,and touched my heart. Oh my was she good! I've got to meet her! David O'Hara was so great and freaky,when he killed Nancy. I was frozen to the T.v. but it's just acting. Well now for Eligah Wood very well done. He was totally perfect for Dodger,just perfect! So was Oliver [Alex Trench] I was so glad when he got his freedom away from that horrible Mrs. Bumble! Well ta ta friends!
The Little Blue Boy Plays The Artful Dodger.......2005-12-21
First off I want to say that I'm a Elijah Wood fan so I have nothing against this gifted actor but I was very disappointed in this version of Oliver Twist and I hate to have to say this but I think he was not right for the part of Artful Dodger. Not only was his British accent poor but the way he looked in the movie in his costumes made me think he was posing for a painting like The Little Blue Boy Painting.
oliver1997.......2005-08-10
Awfull,want to see a good version try Oliver 1967 (only available in UK)Or wait until September 05 yet another version is being released
Strictly for Elijah Wood Fans.......2005-08-06
Charles Dickens has been served amply on film with all but two of his epic Novels (Dombey & Son and Barnaby Rudge) committed to at least one film. The Novella A Christmas Carol has had at least 20 treatments, and close behind it is Oliver Twist. Unfortunately, the Disney TV Oliver Twist does not serve Dickens well, having obliterated most of the delicate balance that the Novel maintains to have credibility. Well, we do forgive and overlook certain things with a classic, but the only contribution this film makes is the performance of Elijah Wood in a very different interpretation of Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger.
The film lacks many main and important characters-Mr. Bumble, the Beetle being the most prominent. Some characters, like Mrs. Corney, are transposed into new roles to cover for missing characters. Disney's London is representational and Fagin's boys are not even sympathetic. Dickens created a world where the orphan is the victim of the environment-the baby farm, the workhouse, the fence, the courts, and prison. Oliver, Jack Dawkins, Bill Sikes and Fagin are the four stages of the fall into depravity at society's hands. Then, why, in this film don't we give a flip about Oliver? He doesn't even appear to be in danger. Maybe because the writers thought Oh, well, everyone knows this story. So let's just give them the parts they want to see and forget the rest. Unfortunately, the beef is removed and the broth has evaporated.
Richard Dreyfuss gives us a caricature of Fagin-rarely threatening, never the tyrannical Jew that Dickens despised and scapegoated and, above all, let's him get away scot-free at the end. In the novel, Fagin goes to the gallows. But we mustn't show the kiddies that! Fagin's character never grows. In addition, Bill Sikes is never as psycho as Dickens portrayed him. David O'Hara presents us with a stage villain, who is more greed than certifiable. Alex Trench as Oliver walks through his role much like David Copperfield does. Except, Dickens' David Copperfield is one of literature blandest creations. Oliver is a harrowing role-purity under complete and utter assault. Not here folks.
Elijah Wood, as the Artful Dodger, is the only actor who both entertains and performs, developing the character to its fullest. Unfortunately, since none of that character's arc is really Dickensian, it serves to heighten the fault with both script and the other performances, That leaves us with a frame for an Elijah Wood showcase.
The sinister plot line that involves Oliver's true heritage is so obliterated in the film that the relationships between Mr. Brownlow and Oliver are actually stated as Grandson and Grandfather. There is no lurking Edward in the background. Rose is a sweet sister like figure instead of Oliver's aunt, haunted by the nightmare of her childhood. Even Mrs. Bedwin, a wonderful Dickens creation, becomes a minor housekeeper with two lines and a tea tray. Nancy, played by Antoine Byrne, is not half so good as she could be and none of the tense emotions that split her between lover and motherhood are presented. I guess we're suppose to have read the book and assume that they are there.
So, what do we have in Disney's Oliver Twist? A thin remnant and bastardized story line from the original-washed faces, both the streets of London and its urchins, a merry old Fagin, a stage murderer, some milk toast ancillaries and a powerful Artful Dodger, who upstages the rest of the cast. Except for a glimpse of Elijah Wood's first adult performance and the intelligence of his stylings, stick to the older OT's-Dickie Moore and Jackie Cooper. C-
Average customer rating:
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Battle for Vimy Ridge
Manufacturer: TITLE HOUSE e-DISTRIBUTION
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ASIN: B000MIIU5M |
Product Description
Four days and 10,000 casualties later, the Canadians stun the world by seizing Vimy Ridge in one of World War Ones most successful and brilliantly planned offensives.
With Canadians now established as fighters of renown, the Canadian Corps under General Currie found itself used increasingly as the shock troops of the allied forces, with the distinct irony of having the most professional army in the world so terrorized by the most civilian.
This feature length documentary traces the Canadian Corps adventures through the murderous Battle of the Somme, ending with the seizing the seemingly impregnable Vimy Ridge. The logistics of this battle, not only won renown for Canada, but also accomplished a fundamentally important strategic breakthrough of the German line are drawn in detail.
Emphasized in the course of the story are some of the practices that gave General Currie his reputation for meticulous preparation and rehearsal of every event; his concern for his men, preferring to sacrifice equipment rather than soldiers; and his development of tactics ultimately imitated by the rest of the allied forces: the flexible platoon system, the creeping barrage.
We are made to realize as well that more than those going over the top represented the war effort. Sympathetic glimpses are provided as well of the different elements of the combined Canadian effort: the flyers, the observers, the medical staff, the engineers and tunnel diggers; the work battalions. Among the most dramatic moments recounted is one of a battle saved by the heroism of one of those non-combat units.
Average customer rating:
- Illiteracy Is A Mental Disorder
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Vol. 4: Arthur, Crystal Trench, Horseplayer, Mrs Bixby and the Colonel's Coat, Band! Your're Dead
Manufacturer: Universal
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000FEW8X8 |
Product Description
Contains Arthur, Crystal Trench, Horseplayer, Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat, and Band! You're Dead
Customer Reviews:
Illiteracy Is A Mental Disorder.......2006-09-28
These episodes are great, but your presentation of the titles leaves some doubt in the reader's mind as to what they are buying. The title of the last offering is "Bang! You're Dead!", not "Band! Your're Dead!" Sounds like you don't like musicians or something.....
Besides, who would want this selection of shows when you can buy Seasons 1 & 2 of the classic "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" for a very reasonable price?
Learn to spell, for crying out loud!
Average customer rating:
- The Trench
- Pretty Bad!!
- Well-intentioned but inept
- for what it is, it was pretty good
- Slice of life; doom without much homomasculine drama
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The Trench [Region 2]
Starring: Paul Nicholls , Daniel Craig , Julian Rhind-Tutt , Danny Dyer , and James D'Arcy
Director: William Boyd (II)
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ASIN: B00004T8VK |
Customer Reviews:
The Trench.......2007-01-04
If you like World War one, you will enjoy this title, but if you are into a real historic view of Trench warfare you will find faults. Acting is solid, but the sets are too clean,even for early in the war. This production seems more stage play, than movie. If you can rent it first, see it before you decide to buy it.
Pretty Bad!!.......2006-06-24
The expectations for this film embraced the word, "epic," but all-in-all, this one missed the boat by orders of magnitude. As a film that was likely intended to show the "reality" of life during trench warfare in World War I, it is an utter failure. SO many missed opportunities here! This film came about as close to accurately portraying trench warfare as "Apocalypse Now" did in accurately describing the Vietnam War, which was positively ludicrous. In fact, this film is so bad that it makes the very limited combat scenes and trench warfare vignettes in "Sergeant York" look like an epic.
Well-intentioned but inept.......2005-07-03
It's heart might be in the right place, but this tepid misfire looks like a bad TV schools production in every way. The 'exteriors' are obviously interior studio sets, and not very convincing ones. It's so badly lit that when the film finally goes outdoors to rip off the end of Gallipoli (which it does incredibly badly, like everything else) the change of film stock is so jarring it hurts.
The characters are childish stereotypes talking in unbelievable clichés and the film is frequently just plain wrong about details and attitudes of the average WW1 Tommy: politically correct, maybe, but historically it's a travesty (no Mr Boyd, officers DID go over the top: the highest percentage of casualties was officers, and even many generals died in battle).
But more than being badly directed, looking cheap, getting its facts wrong and going with every cliché Boyd can find, it's biggest sin is that it's just so bloody boring. Bad on every level.
WW1 was a terrible tragedy, and those who died in it deserve better than this terrible, terrible film.
for what it is, it was pretty good.......2005-02-10
Reading the other reviews here, I had to post one myself to defend it. The movie has its problems, but some of the complaints are unjustified.
To say the ending was a rip-off of some other war movie is just silly -- how else could it have ended? This was the Somme. You don't make a movie about the first day of the Somme if you want anything other than a massacre.
To the person complaining about No Man's Land being a grassy meadow. There was a place called Serre where the attacking British DID cross a grassy meadow. The grass was so long, as the wounded men fell, some of the others thought there'd been an order to get down, and so they did too, only to find the others wounded or dead.
To the guy complaining about the lack of homoerotic content, all I can say is, oh well. Not everything's always about sex.
Movies about battles like this, you can look at from a big picture perspective or you can zoom in for a close look at a group of individuals. This movie goes for the close-up. It's not trying to be anything else. This is a movie about the strain of the long hours waiting for a major offensive to begin, for a bunch of young guys, most of whom were new to the war. It's dumb to criticize it for failing to be something else. I thought it did a pretty good job of portraying the situation. The boredom, the fear, how difficult it would be to sleep or eat or turn off your brain during those long hours. The ways the men might snipe at one another over little things due to frayed nerves. The relationship between the men, the sergeant and the lieutenant was subtle but I think well-done.
My complaints are that it goes about a half hour too long. The trench looked mighty tidy to me too. I had trouble believing that a shell big enough to blow 2 men to bits wouldn't have done more damage to the structure of the trench there.
Also most of these guys would have known each other from civilian life; the British army had a lot of "Pals Battalions" where guys from the same village or area joined up and served together. Most of these guys should have known one another.
I am pretty sure I saw a guy light a cigarette with a Bic-type lighter and I'm pretty sure they would not have had something like that.
I think for a look at "trench life" for a bunch of newbies about to go over the top for the first time, it was pretty good.
Slice of life; doom without much homomasculine drama.......2004-12-20
This movie seemed like a filmed stage play from an off-Broadway experimental theater in the 1960s. This does not mean it is a bad drama, but that its classical unities of time, place, and action are theatrical rather than filmic. The characters are the same stock characters always found in war movies from "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "Platoon." In fact, one of its sniper scenes is straight out of the last scene in "All Quiet."
This does not mean it is bad so much as it means that without explosive action the military genre becomes a talkfest--in this case between teenagers who don't know each other and therefore have not much to say. In the 60s, plays like this cozied up to homosexuality, which "Trench" fails to do, even though the film stars gay icon Daniel Craig who is the calling card in the cast.
[...]
Anyway, this mise en scene happens years after Walt Whitman and his revealing Calamus soldier poems, and a few years after "Mrs. Dalloway" and "Gods and Monsters" did "takes" on gay men fighting WWI.
Also we are now in, hello, the 21st century when the love that dare not speak its name fairly shouts and it's time to present the unspoken past of WWI and its buried soldier-lovers. Such a tactic would, at least, have given the plotless plot some edge. If same-period "Maurice" could show same-sex lovers, then why not uncloset these lives in the trenches? These homomasculine buddy-buddy war stories of chums who enlist together, train together, fight together, die together are coming even out of Iraq.
As presented, the film channels all of its anxieties about love and death and comradeship into huge amounts of smoking where inhaling means one thing and exhaling means another and lighting a match means everything. If this had been a non-smoking "Trench," there would have been no stage business at all.
The whole film is lensed in a virtual general shot. Too bad. Some close-ups would have helped, particularly of Daniel Craig, whose eyes deserve two Academy Awards.
All in all, if you like theater, you may enjoy the one-dimensial "Trench," but accept it for what it is. Don't fault it because it is not a high-budget action film. For fun, do a double feature of "Trench" with "Lafayette Escadrille" which is also a little known WWI film full of very handsome, very blond men.
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Trench Coat (Juoksuhaudantie) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Finland ]
Director: Veikko Aaltonen
Manufacturer: Kinotar
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
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ASIN: B000BP37DG |
Product Description
Finland released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Languages:
o English (subtitles)
o Finnish (subtitles)
o Swedish (subtitles)
o Finnish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
o Finnish (Dolby Digital 2.0) Synopsis:
Juoksuhaudantie is a nice movie, and it is very close to the book written by Finnish author Kari Hotakainen. The book won the biggest Finnish literature prize, Finlandia, in 2002. Though book and movie are very similar, they contain also some differences. The book contains much more humor and is more optimistic too. Despite that, the film is very fluently directed and pleasant to watch. Special Features:
o Biographies
o Cast/Crew Interview(s)
o Interactive Menu
o Scene Access
o Trailer(s)
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ABC News Primetime Save Yourself in a School Shooting
Manufacturer: ABC News
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000IZJQMK
Release Date: 2006-09-22 |
Description
ABC News safety consultant Bob Stuber shows "Primetime's" Chris Cuomo what students and teachers can do to stay safe if there is a shooting at their school. Correspondent: Chris Cuomo
DVD:
- Sarah, Plain & Tall Collection
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Army of One (aka Joshua Tree)
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