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DVD I Capture the Castle
When her family moves into a glamorous castle in the English countryside, Cassandra (Romola Garai) imagines great things will happen. But the decaying castle loses its appeal as her novelist father (Bill Nighy, Love Actually) develops writer's block and her mother dies of cancer. From this sad beginning, I Capture the Castle turns into an utterly engaging coming-of-age story as 17-year-old Cassandra and her older sister Rose (Rose Byrne) struggle to win the attentions of their new American landlord (Henry Thomas, E.T. The Extraterrestrial)--but when everything goes the way Cassandra hopes, her hopes fall apart. Garai's wonderful performance carries the audience through bittersweet discoveries about life and adulthood with hope and yearning. The entire cast---also featuring Tara Fitzgerald (Brassed Off) and Marc Blucas--is superb. I Capture the Castle is an absolutely lovely movie, delightful and surprisingly wise. --Bret Fetzer
Odd mixture of revisionist film-making...for those who read the book first
For those who enjoyed the book first, this film seems strangely wrong.
The filmmakers are too greatly influenced by a combination of the
Merchant-Ivory films, all those wonderful Masterpiece Theatre/BBC
historical British dramas and a sort-of light, airy type of film-making
that's completely out-of-place for this story.
This family is living on very hard times and I don't think that's shown
properly. In the book, Topaz is a much stranger character (in the book,
she reminds me of a blonde version of perhaps, Morticia Addams(!) and
Mortmain should not just be moody. In the book, he's much more
odd...and interesting.
I guess they got Rose and Cassandra right, but there's none of the
poverty and hopelessness that's so clearly drawn in the book.
I capture the castle
I loved it! Even though the book is much better than the movie, I still liked it. The scenery is gorgeous, the people are beautiful and the story held my attention. It is definitely a chick flick. It`s all done in green England, and is produced by the BBC. I did like all the 1930`s styles and mores. A charming movie.
A Good Try At Filming A Great Novel
Like everyone who's read the book, I didn't care for the movie as much, but it still has its merits.
Unfortunately the music was bombastic, overbearing, this Vangelis heavy beat as though the girls were racing down the beach in CHARIOTS OF FIRE, totally anachronistic.
Sinead Cusack was ghastly as the Cotton boys' mother, and what kind of American accent was she supposed to be using? It was like nothing on earth and didn't seem to be synched up to her lip movements.
The little boy who played Thomas, the stud who played Stephen, and Tara Fitzgerald as Topax were all excellent. What happened to Tara Fitzgerald, only a few years ago she would have been playing Rose, she was the ingenue in every British movie imported into US theaters. Sad the way time flutters by and today's hot young thing is now playing tomorrow's stepmother! And her hair looked like the hair of an old hag in a Walter Scott novel-one who lives in a cave.
I thoroughly approve of Romola Garai as Cassandra Mortmain. I thought she was perfect for the part. Rose Byrne was not as gorgeous as I had hoped, as Rose, with her huge cheeks and beady little eyes. She looked ghastly and gained 20 years when Mrs. Cotton cut off her And makeup artists should have painted over that distracting blemish on her face that grew worse throughout the movie. However she was perfectly piquant in the exotic pink crinoline dress with black shoes and the red feather in her hair that she wote when bringing her family to dinner with the Cottons. Cassandra's blue dress she wore in the nightclub was also lovely.
Henry Thomas and Marc Blucas were also underwhelming. Blucas used to be so good looking as Riley Finn on the TV version of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Here he looked pasty and unfit. Henry Thomas was doing all his acting with his eyes. He seemed to be leading Cassandra on during their dance to "You and The Night and The Music." It was mesmerizing, but I for once thought he was in love with her, afterwards he said he kissed her just because she was so funny and amusing and sweet. Right.
Finally I'm of two minds about Bill Nighy. He's always the same in every picture, but I think his manic, worn-out quietude was fitting for James Mortmain. You could believe he was a writer, even though not the James Joyce-style writer he get from Dodie Smith's book.
This hilarious spoof on British costume dramas based on great literature stars Kate Beckinsale (Much Ado About Nothing) as a strong-willed, young woman named Miss Flora Poste, who finds herself orphaned and without means in the 1930s. Moving in with some half-savage relatives on a country farm, Flora is hardly daunted by their primitivism (as she might have been in a novel by Thomas Hardy) but instead takes charge and imposes hygiene, order, and good manners on the dirty, superstitious lot. John Schlesinger directs this brisk, infectious adaptation of the 1932 novel by Stella Gibbons. Beckinsale is wonderful, and the rest of the savvy, inspired cast perfectly send up a host of literary clichés. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Eileen Atkins - Kate Beckinsale - Sheila Burrell - Stephen Fry Director(s): John Schlesinger DVD Release Date: Released the 01 July 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I'm a bit surprised to see the somewhat tepid 4-star reviews of this great film, one of my all-time favorite movies (others being Godfather I&II, Dr. Strangelove, Notting Hill, The Player, Pulp Fiction).
The acting, the plot, the direction, and the setting is marvelous. I don't even particularly like Lake Como (it's easily my least favorite destination in Italy) but I love this film!
The BBC has raised the mini-series to an astonishing creative peak. A prime example is the 1994 production of Middlemarch, based on the classic novel by George Eliot, which juxtaposes morals and money, grand ambitions with petty jealousies, and pursuits of the mind with bodily needs. A handsome young doctor named Lydgate (Douglas Hodge, Vanity Fair) comes to the provincial town of Middlemarch to start a new hospital; a headstrong young woman named Dorothea (Juliet Aubrey, The Mayor of Casterbridge) yearns to contribute to the greater good of the world. These idealists enter into marriages that derail all their intentions and lead them into lives they never imagined. The network of characters in this six-episode program, ranging up and down the societal ladder, create... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Anthony Page DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Falling neatly into the Enchanted April and Under the Tuscan Sun category, the made-for-HBO My House in Umbria boasts lovely Italian vistas and comforting Englishness. But it begins with a note of violence: on a train rolling through the sunny countryside, a terrorist bomb detonates, killing a handful of passengers. The strangers that survive recuperate at the villa of an eccentric but kindly romance novelist, also a survivor of the blast. She's played by Maggie Smith, who bustles through the role with a pleasing mix of gin and daffodils. Chris Cooper is an uptight American who comes to the villa to pick up his orphaned niece and bristles at the bohemian atmosphere. Director Richard Loncraine maintains the melancholy mood amidst the sun-dappled gardens of Umbria, but... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Richard Loncraine DVD Release Date: Released the 25 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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