See This Film: Pride and Prejudice (2005)

 

 

 

 

        When people ask me what my favorite film of the year has been I’m almost hesitant to tell them for fear that it will reflect badly upon my masculinity, but if I were to be completely honest I would have to say that it was Joe Wright’s take on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I have never been a fan of period films or Jane Austen, but I was absolutely mesmerized by each frame of this adaptation. Not one shot seems wasted and each detail is meticulously formed to create a captivating and beautiful film. Each role is expertly cast and even more impressively portrayed, and the only thing that is able to upstage the talent is the breathtaking cinematography set to a simple yet poignant score. In short, I would be hard pressed to find more than a few things that I don’t like about Pride and Prejudice.

 

        This version of Jane Austen’s story focuses largely on Elizabeth Bennet, one of the middle children in a liberal household. Elizabeth speaks her mind freely which gets her into some trouble when she meets the seemingly uptight Mr. Darcy. In a family filled with girls, Elizabeth’s mother’s main goal is to marry them all off, but she refuses to marry unless it is for love. Mr. Darcy seems the last person in the world she could love, but first impressions prove to be very deceiving.

 

Throwback Thursday Review: Adoration

 

Actors: Devon Bostick, Rachel Blanchard, Louca Tassone, Kenneth Welsh, Yuval Daniel

Director: Atom Egoyan

Writer: Atom Egoyan

Producers: Atom Egoyan, Jennifer Weiss, Laurent Pétin, Marcy Gerstein, Michèle Pétin

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1

Rated: R (Restricted)

Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Release Date:  2009

Run Time: 100 minutes

 

        Born in Egypt and raised in Canada, filmmaker Atom Egoyan brings a unique worldview to his films. Adoration isn’t a political film in the sense that any coherent message is made, but there are still present nonetheless. Rather than making a film which utilizes the medium to make a point, Egoyan simply shows how the issues of terrorism and religious/political beliefs come to affect the lives of a group of people after a high school teacher encourages a student to tell a white lie.

 

The story involves a teenage boy named Simon (Devon Bostick) and his uncle, Tom (Scott Speedman). They both seem to be having a difficult time with life, Tom struggling to make enough money to raise his sister’s son away from his hateful father. Things only get worse for Simon when his French teacher, Sabine (Arsinee Khanjian), gives a translating assignment about a terrorist threat. When he tells the story as though his deceased parents were the ones involved, Sabine insists that he repeat the exercise out-loud to his class. After that he tells the story to larger audiences, and they all believe it to be true. The deeper issue is why Simon seems to believe that this story is close to his own truth about his parents’ death.

 

The Wolverine Unleashed at 20th Century Fox Studios

 

       

        Unrated and extended versions of films for the home entertainment release have become so commonplace that the title hardly has significance any longer. The extended cut of Fast and Furious 6 was less than a minute longer than the theatrical cut. Even when there are differences to the cut of the film, it is hardly of significance, so I was somewhat surprised by the fanfare the unrated extended cut of The Wolverine was met with by 20^th Century Fox and the film’s director, James Mangold. In anticipation of the film’s release on DVD and Blu-ray this week, on December 3rd, Mangold attended a screening of the extended cut of the film held on the Fox studio lot.

       

New BBC TV on DVD and Blu-ray: Doctor Who, Last Tango in Halifax, The Paradise and Silk

Actors: William Hartnell, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Robert Beatty

Director: Derek Martinus

Writers: Kit Pedler, Gerry Davis

Producers: Innes Lloyd

Format: NTSC, Black & White

Language: English

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1

Rated: NR (Not Rated)

Studio: BBC Home Entertainment

DVD Release Date: November 19, 2013

Run Time: 93 minutes

Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet

 

        As all fans of classic “Doctor Who” are painfully aware of, many episodes were destroyed in an infamous purge of old film and television content by the BBC in the 1970s. Only through discoveries in personal collections and various archives have some of these episodes been recovered, though there are still many storylines which have been left incomplete for decades since they were first created. “The Tenth Planet” was one of these storylines, taking place during William Hartnell’s three years as the first of many to play the Doctor.

 

        “The Tenth Planet” is story number 29 in the “Doctor Who” timeline, and it involves the discovery of Earth’s forgotten twin planet in the year of 1986. The planet Mondas is inhabited with the emotionless Cybermen attempting to convert all of humanity on Earth into the same fate. Only the Doctor can help to save humanity, though very few episodes actually show the otherworldly invaders, and one of those is the episode which is missing. The missing episode has been replaced with a brand-new animated version of the lost section. This storyline also marks the last appearance from Hartnell as the Doctor, making history as he becomes the first to retire from the role.