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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Do you never have time to get to the cinema? Are the ticket prices too expensive or is it just impossible to get babysitters? Don’t despair. More and more films are being released on video within months of appearing on the big screen. This month Socialist Review highlights some of this year’s video releases now available to watch over the Xmas holidays.
The Wedding Banquet: a New York comedy about a gay Taiwanese man who tries to appease his parents with a fake wedding. Recommended.
Raining Stones: a Ken Loach mix of laughs and tears in this tale of life on the dole in Manchester.
The Piano: award winning story of repressed passions set deep in the forests of a New Zealand plantation in the last century.
Dave: a great spoof on the idea that any ordinary person off the street could make a better US president than the real one.
Farewell my Concubine: one of the best of this year’s many films from China portraying the last 50 years through the lives of two actors in the Peking opera.
And the Band Played On: Randy Shilts’ book adapted for the big screen on the story behind the spread of Aids and the hunt for a cure.
The Age of Innocence: Martin Scorsese’s stunning version of love in the repressive and brutal world of high class New York in the 1870s.
Bhaji on the Beach: a hilarious day out in Blackpool with a group of Asian women, young and old.
Philadelphia: forget Tom Hanks’s nauseating Oscar acceptance speech. This is a welcome big budget movie on gay oppression.
Four Weddings and a Funeral: a feel good film for the 1990s though some say he should have stopped at two!
Germinal: Gérard Depardieu leads a miners’ uprising in this powerful adaptation of Zola’s novel.
Daens: another story of an epic struggle of workers rising up against their bosses, this time led by an idealistic priest.
There are also many classic old films and a growing collection of foreign language films in most big video stores for sale or rental. Artificial Eye videos have a great video catalogue, as do Connoisseur Videos and Electric Pictures.
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Last updated: 12 November 2017