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DVD : Absolute Beginners [Region 2] |
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 4009750215500
Format: PAL
Region Code: 2
Theatrical Release Date: April 18, 1986
Sales Rank: 210457
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
A commercial disaster upon its release in 1986, Absolute Beginners is an uneven but often stunning attempt at revitalizing the movie musical with postmodern sensibilities. Director Julien Temple was making his first foray into dramatic features after an impressive string of music videos and documentaries (including the first of two Temple-directed profiles of the Sex Pistols), and he upped the stakes by harnessing his visual ingenuity to a period piece exploring London's social transformation at the edge of the '60s--a fleeting moment in the pop zeitgeist that may as well have been the Cambrian Age to Temple's MTV-generation audience. This is post-World War II London turning the corner from economic austerity, giddy with jazz and early rock, yet to witness the Beatles and the Stones.
Adapted from Colin MacInnes's novel, the story follows Colin (Eddie O'Connell), a young Londoner looking to find his place in the world. A budding romance with the intoxicating Suzette (Patsy Kensit) as well as crises of conscience over social responsibility and financial gain are the plot threads in a story that arguably tackles too many Big Ideas, including adolescent identity, British racism (directed at West Indian immigrants) and class prejudice, and capitalism itself, embodied by David Bowie as unctious, superstar executive Vendice Partners.
In wrestling with such valiant ambitions, Temple and his young cast establish the film's musical soul in a canny synthesis of '80s English pop with postwar bop and the seeds of Mod culture. Onscreen performances by Fine Young Cannibals, Sade, and Kensit, a Bowie production number ("Motivation") that cribs from Busby Berkeley, and a wonderful sequence with the Kinks' Ray Davies as Arthur (a likely nod to his own band's 1969 rock opera) are all well realized. Less obviously, Temple salutes the period's forgotten jazz legacy through a score from the late Gil Evans, and in the jaw-dropping, bravura opening sequence, an extended single-camera journey through Soho set to Charles Mingus's joyous "Boogie Stop Shuffle" that is itself reason enough to see this brave musical. --Sam Sutherland
Average Rating: 
Rating: -
Absolute Beginners was released in 1986, but it harkens back to those halcyon days of 1958, when England was shaking off its drab shades of grey, gray, and greyer, and embracing more vibrant colors and the power of youth. The Musical is based on the novel of the same name by Colin MacInnes. Colin is also the name of the photographer/narrator (Eddie O'Connell), who is the protagonist. As the film opens, he explains in voice-over his ambition to capture the ethereal blossoms on film before they wither ... Read More
Rating:  -
With my new desire to get back to the unknown, I decided to start at the beginning with a little musical that I heard nothing about, never once caught a tune from a song, nor would think most mainstream video stores will carry. "Absolute Beginners" was a MTV promotion that was initially destined to be one of the biggest box office films of the year. It was a film for the younger generation, a multi-time film that discussed the issues that teens were facing in Britain and how these troubled, constantly ... Read More
Rating:  -
One of the things I loved about this movie was the set design and costumes, all in spectacular colors. However, the color in this MGM-released DVD wobbles from vivid to washed-out and back to vivid, often during the same scene. Pretty disappointing -- what I might expect from a 2nd-generation VHS copy, but not a DVD.
Rating: -
This year I had the opportunity to read both Absolute Beginners and City of Spades, both by Colin MacInnes. Both deal with racial tension in London. I was surprized to find this DVD where the novel Absolute Beginners had been made into a film. I was even more surprized when I watched this ambitious, slightly flawed, but creative brave product.
Eddie O'Connell and Patshy Kensit are beautiful as Colin the 19 year old photographer, and Crepe Suzette, his dress designer girlfriend. Both have superb ... Read More
Rating: -
I've had the soundtrack to this movie for years, the double album no less. It is an absolute masterpiece. The movie is a bit of a let down after finally seeing it. If you think of this movie as a series of interconnecting vignettes it works much better as the plot is very convoluted and meandering.
The final riot seems out of place, but is very effective with our hero caught in the middle of a race riot, running from both the neo-nazis and the angry blacks, having no safe place to go. Jerry Dammer's ... Read More
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starring: Patsy Kensit, Eddie O'Connell, David Bowie, James Fox, Ray Davies
directed by: Julien Temple
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Nightbreed
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 4009750215500
Format: PAL
Region Code: 2
Theatrical Release Date: April 18, 1986
Sales Rank: 210457
Robert E. Collins
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![: Absolute Beginners [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/310XRPR50YL._SL160_.jpg)
