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DVD Prick Up Your Ears
Joe Orton was briefly the embodiment of a certain kind of '60s rebel, and Stephen Frears's film adaptation of the British playwright's biography successfully conjures up that outrageous spirit. The hostile, fussy codependency between Orton (Gary Oldman) and his brooding lover Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina) forms the centerpiece of a story that features not only Orton's success and his brutal demise at Halliwell's hand, but also a vivid depiction of what gay sexuality meant in a repressive era. What really propels it are the performances--Oldman's naughty, overgrown boy could believably have written Orton's romps, and the powder-keg priss rendered by Molina helps establish motivations that the script lacks. It's always good to see Vanessa Redgrave (ideal as Orton's agent), and Julie Walters has a hysterically unrecognizable bit as Orton's exasperated mum. If the film is a bit aloof, it's also crisp and often acidly funny (Orton and Halliwell do jail time for writing luridly phony synopses in library books). Frears has done a memorable bit in bringing both a man and his time to life. --Steve Wiecking
get this if you like good writing and exceptional acting
At last. This film has been unavailable on VHS for a couple of years now. I seriously contemplated stealing the copy from my local video store but couldn't do it. The whole cast is superb. The story is extremely interesting and it's all true. Oldman is Joe Orton, the uninhibited English playwright who was the toast of the town in 60's London. Young and successful he lives life to its limits, hindered only by his mentor, lover and eventual murderer Kenneth, exceptionally portrayed by Alfred Molina (who has fallen far, now starring in a horrendous American sitcom called Ladies' Man). Their story is very engrossing. Vanessa Redgrave is the literary agent and this performance made her one of my fave female actors of all time. She's excellent. Get this movie!
looking for success
A beautiful film, a cult movie, finally on video. The love-hate relationship between Joe Orton, the famous playwright of the 60s and his friend Kenneth Halliwell, a love story which is also a strife between two men who seem to try to overcome each other, what they both want is success, until one of them(Joe Orton) wins the "match" and becomes famous. His sex life is extraordinarily "lively"; he finds sex in all the men's toilets and dark alleys of london, seeking those fleeting exciting moments that only the "hunt" can give. Eventually he writes all these episodes down in his diaries asking Halliwell to read them,"so you would like me a little less" says Orton. He is now a famous playwright, Halliwell is his "personal assistant" as he defines himself trying to find a purpose in his life that he considers useless: Joe doesn't love him, he doesn't have sex with him any more, he cannot share success with Joe. Halliwell gets terribly depressed..........Then the tragedy. Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina are two superb actors, director Stephen Frears is at his best. A film that everybody should see.
I LOVE THIS MOVIE!
Am thrilled that it's finally being released on DVD. If you haven't seen it -- beautiful performances, fascinating subject. You won't be disappointed.
The second of the three Merchant/Ivory films adapting E.M. Forster novels (between A Room with a View and Howard's End), Maurice deals with a theme few period pieces dare mention--a young man's struggle with his homosexuality. It's not just a gay coming-of-age story, however. The hero wrestles with British class society as much as his personal and sexual identity.
The film opens on a stormy, windswept beach, as an older man awkwardly instructs young, fatherless Maurice Hall (James Wilby) in the "sacred mysteries" of sex. The same turbulent, wordless struggle with passion lasts throughout this slowly evolving, beautifully filmed story. Novelist E.M. Forster's brainy, British melodrama hinges on choice and compulsion, as the pensive hero falls for two completely... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Rupert Graves Director(s): James Ivory DVD Release Date: Released the 24 February 2004 Special Order
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Harvey Fierstein had a smash hit on Broadway with the stage version of this story about a drag queen, but whatever the magic there was doesn't show up in this film adaptation. (Fierstein allegedly couldn't line up an A-list or even B-list director in 1988 to tackle the gay story line, so he agreed to work with Paul Bogart, a ubiquitous television director but an undistinguished feature filmmaker.) Fierstein's performance is fine, but likely a shadow of his live work, while Anne Bancroft is very strong in the role of his character's mother. Matthew Broderick went against the tide of fear shared by most Hollywood actors at the time about playing gay characters. The times have certainly changed since then. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Anne Bancroft - Matthew Broderick - Harvey Fierstein Director(s): Paul Bogart DVD Release Date: Released the 04 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This 1993 international hit by Ang Lee is a funny and poignant story of a gay, Taiwanese-American man who goes to some lengths to fool his visiting family that he's actually straight. The results are far more complicated and entertaining than anyone could have guessed. The film seems all the more rich now since Lee has become a major Hollywood director: that same sensitivity and mild bemusement he brought to such stories of manners as Sense and Sensibility and The Ice Storm in recent years are in full bloom in this earlier work. --Tom KeoghMore Info about this DVD Actor(s): Winston Chao - May Chin Director(s): Ang Lee DVD Release Date: Released the 15 June 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The premise sounds great but the promise is never fulfilled. Terrence McNally's Tony Award-winning hit about a cluster of gay male friends who gather several times one summer at a Victorian house on the bank of a rural lake never quite measures up (at least on film) as anything particularly profound. The story traces a history of infighting and changing relationships within the group, with the shock of AIDS slowly pushing everyone toward greater closeness and honesty. But instead of making an impact, so much of the film is trivial: dinner conversations are banal, tantrums are tedious, genitals are a little too overexposed. The two best and most familiar actors in the piece, Jason Alexander and John Glover, ironically play the most cliché-ridden characters. Still, Glover--who... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jason Alexander - Stephen Spinella - Stephen Bogardus - Randy Becker - John Benjamin Hickey Director(s): Joe Mantello DVD Release Date: Released the 04 May 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Luchino Visconti's adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel is the very definition of sumptuous: the costumes and sets, the special geography of Venice, and the breathtaking cinematography combine to form a heady experience. At the center of this gorgeousness is Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde in a meticulous performance), a controlled intellectual who unexpectedly finds himself obsessed by the vision of a 14-year-old boy while on a convalescent vacation in 1911. Visconti has turned Aschenbach into a composer, which accounts for the lush excerpts from Mahler on the soundtrack (Bogarde is meant to look like Mahler, too). Even if it tends to hit the nail on the head a little too forcefully, and even if Visconti can test one's patience with lingering looks at crowds at the beach and hotel dining rooms,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Dirk Bogarde Director(s): Luchino Visconti DVD Release Date: Released the 17 February 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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