Quote:
After hastening the death of a tenant with whom he has been feuding, Squire Fairfield brings the dead man’s young daughter to live in Wyvern Manor.

The.Wyvern.Mystery.2000.DVDRip.DD2.0.x264-BoMBARDiERS.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 58 min
Size: 	1.54 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	720x412 ~> 720x450
Aspect ratio:  	16:10
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 667 kb/s
BPP: 	0.234
Audio
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https://nitro.download/view/13C4C7DE0F8E1AB/The.Wyvern.Mystery.2000.DVDRip.DD2.0.x264-BoMBARDiERS.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:none

The post Alex Pillai – The Wyvern Mystery (2000)  first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Michael Billington:
There are many ways of approaching Shakespeare’s youthful tragedy: Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh take the scenic route in this new production. We are plunged into a vividly imagined 1950s Italy of dark-suited men, petticoated women, bicycling friars, patriarchal oppression and frantic partying. You feel Fellini is due any moment to film it with a movie camera and, even if the result has its oddities, the production certainly has a pulsating energy.

The big draw is the casting of Lily James and Richard Madden, who played opposite each other in the Branagh movie of Cinderella, as the doomed lovers. They acquit themselves very well: they have youth, looks and passion on their side. I was puzzled, however, by some of the directorial decisions that mean we miss Juliet’s rapid maturation from inexperienced child to married woman. James’s Juliet seems very knowing from the start and when Romeo says “she doth teach the torches to burn bright” you wonder if it is because she is at the time huskily crooning a song in the style of a torch singer.

This is a Juliet who swigs from a bottle on the balcony and later anticipates Romeo’s arrival with a positively orgasmic ecstasy. James is excellent in the second half where Juliet vividly imagines the horror of entombment but, by placing so much stress on the character’s sexuality, the production sacrifices some of her vulnerability.

Madden gets more chance to show Romeo’s progress from self-absorbed moper to someone genuinely inflamed by love. Madden is especially good at articulating Romeo’s challenge to fate on “I defy you, stars” and suggests he is infected by the Veronese cult of violence: at one point, he even threatens to strike his spiritual adviser, Friar Laurence, who for once seems roughly the same age.

That is in stark contrast to Mercutio who is here played by Derek Jacobi. The idea is clearly that Mercutio is a dandified old swinger who likes to hang out with young men, and Jacobi brings to the role both a sashaying charm and his own minute precision with the verse: it is a pleasure to hear him treat the Queen Mab speech not as a manic rant but as a series of microscopic images so that we actually imagine “the wings of grasshoppers”. It just seems improbable that Jacobi’s humorous lounge-lizard should suddenly turn into a reckless swordsman.

But the production is staged with great fluency and Christopher Oram’s design, dominated by soaring columns that reminded me of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, allows for striking effects: the best is when Juliet retires for the night in a circular white tent that descends on her like a shroud. There is also good work from a strong supporting cast: a constant feature of the Branagh season. Meera Syal plays the Nurse not as a toothless old crone but as a friskily mischievous figure who genuinely shares Juliet’s amorous excitement, and Michael Rouse’s Capulet is a dangerous hysteric who abuses all the women in his power.

The whole thing is done with a speed and vigour that ensures we are never bored; and if I generally preferred the first half to the second, that is because Shakespeare’s tragedy itself depends too much on chance and the faulty Italian postal service.

Part I.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 20 min
Size: 	1.19 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1118x476 
Aspect ratio:  	2.35:1
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 950 kb/s
BPP: 	0.147
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 160 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/EBFBFF807F555B8/Part_I.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E50208B98BA1801/Part_II.mkv

Languae(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post Kenneth Branagh, Rob Ashford & Benjamin Caron – Romeo and Juliet [Branagh Theatre Company] (2016) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Biography of British painter Francis Bacon focuses on his relationship with his lover, George Dyer, a former small time crook.

Adrian Searle:
Love Is the Devil is a devilish brew of naturalism, Baconesque film effects, history and gossip. It is a warped anthropological detour into the fag end of 1950s Soho bohemia, dragged too far into the 1960s but it is also a tragic love story, with astonishing performances and character cameos. It was always bound to be trouble, and was inevitably going to get into trouble, even before filming began.

Everyone likes a bit of rough – the frisson of danger and perversion. It is a cliche of how artists are supposed to behave. Bacon fitted the bill perfectly. He was by all accounts a deeply complex man. He was also, not to be forgotten, highly intelligent, profoundly manipulative, contrary, slippery and a superb performer. He invented not just a style (Bacon was self-taught), but a personality, as both an artist and a man. He also looked good, a kind of bruiser intellectual who brushed his teeth with Vim, dyed his hair with boot polish and went about wearing women’s undies.

Love.Is.the.Devil.Study.for.a.Portrait.of.Francis.Bacon.1998.720p.BluRay.FLAC2.0.x264-CRiSC.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 30 min
Size: 	5.32 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1280x692 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	7 670 kb/s
BPP: 	0.361
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch FLAC @ 651 kb/s (FLAC 2.0 @ 651 kbps)
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC SBR @ 82.0 kb/s (Commentary AAC 2.0 @ 82 kbps)

https://nitro.download/view/AE544CF3F6AFF1F/Love.Is.the.Devil.Study.for.a.Portrait.of.Francis.Bacon.1998.720p.BluRay.FLAC2.0.x264-CRiSC.mkv

Language(s):English, French
Subtitles:English

The post John Maybury – Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A 1989 British drama film adapted for the screen and directed by Kenneth Branagh, based on William Shakespeare’s play of the same name about Henry V of England. The film stars Branagh in the title role with Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Brian Blessed, and Christian Bale in supporting roles.

The film received worldwide critical acclaim and has been widely considered one of the best Shakespeare film adaptations ever made. For her work on the film, Phyllis Dalton won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design and Kenneth Branagh, in his directorial debut, received Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Best Director.

Branagh’s film is frequently compared with the 1944 film of the play directed by and starring Laurence Olivier. The visual style of Branagh’s film is grittier and more realistic than that of Olivier’s. For example, his film avoids Olivier’s use of stylized sets, and, where Olivier staged the Battle of Agincourt on a sunlit field, Branagh’s takes place amid rain-drenched mud and gore. Nearly all of the scenes involving the comic characters were also staged as drama, rather than in the broad, more slapstick way in which Olivier staged them, because Branagh felt that modern audiences would not see the humor in these scenes.

While the text of the Chorus’ monologues are the same, the setting for them has been adapted to reflect the nature of the motion picture adaptation of the play. Unlike the other performers, who are dressed in clothing contemporary to the actual Henry V to reflect their characters, the Chorus is dressed in modern 20th century clothing. The opening monologue, originally written to compensate for the limitations of on stage theater to represent the historical scenes presented, is delivered on an empty motion picture sound stage with unfinished sets. The other chorus monologues are delivered on location where the relevant action is taking place. In all cases, the chorus speaks directly to the camera, addressing the audience.

Henry V received near-universal critical acclaim for Branagh’s Oscar-nominated performance and direction, for the accessibility of its Shakespearean language, and for its score by Patrick Doyle. It currently holds a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 83 out of 100, based on 17 reviews—all positive. Henry V also ranks #1 on the Rotten Tomatoes list of Greatest Shakespeare Movies, beating Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (1985) and Branagh’s own version of Hamlet (1996), respectively ranking in second and third place.

Roger Ebert, noted critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, highly praising Branagh’s performance and writing, “There is no more stirring summons to arms in all of literature than Henry’s speech to his troops on St. Crispan’s Day, ending with the lyrical ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ To deliver this speech successfully is to pass the acid test for anyone daring to perform the role of Henry V in public, and as Kenneth Branagh, as Henry, stood up on the dawn of the Battle of Agincourt and delivered the famous words, I was emotionally stirred even though I had heard them many times before. That is one test of a great Shakespearian actor: to take the familiar and make it new.” Variety magazine also gave the film a positive review, calling Henry V “A stirring, gritty and enjoyable pic which offers a plethora of fine performances from some of the U.K.’s brightest talents.”

Henry V (Kenneth Branagh 1989).mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2h 17mn
Size: 	2.10 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x466 ~> 862x466
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
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#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 Kbps (Stereo)

https://nitro.download/view/BB1727BD84CD781/Henry_V_(Kenneth_Branagh_1989).mkv

https://fikper.com/rEcdO21roR/Henry_V_(Kenneth_Branagh_1989).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Kenneth Branagh – Henry V (1989) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
A fieldmouse named Mrs. Brisby must move her family to a safe location before the farmer plows the field where they live, but her invalid son Timmy cannot go outside due to his pneumonia. She enlists the aid of some highly intelligent, escaped lab rats that have built a subterranean society inside a rose bush near the farmer’s garden. The rats, led by the wise Nicodemus, decide to help her physically move her house to repay a debt of gratitude to her late husband, who made possible the rats’ escape from the laboratory. But things become complicated when some of the rats decide to use the situation to kill Nicodemus and make it appear to be accidental.

2.35GB | 1 h 22 min | 1024×560 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/5954F783926BF30/The.Secret.of.NIMH.576p.1982.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English+commentary
Subtitles:English, French, Spanish

The post Don Bluth – The Secret of NIMH (1982) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

When Arthur Davis, a junior bachelor in the British secret service’s African section, is seen taking a file with him -to meet his girlfriend Cynthia- the brass fears he may be the leak to Moskow, and allows Dr. Percival to terminate the ‘risk factor’ by poisoning to avoid a scandal. In fact Davis’s desk chief, Maurice Castle, is the double agent since the South African communists helped him smuggle out his black lover Sarah M., meanwhile his wife and mother of schoolboy Sam, to force him to cooperate with the Apartheid government. When Cornelius Muller, the South African official who failed to get him in Pretoria’s power, visits London for the anti-communist operation Uncle Remus, he points out Castle still is the natural suspect…

3.04GB | 1h 55m | 958×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/61FA74BB9D50F9E/The_Human_Factor_(1979)_–_Otto_Preminger.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:German (Muxed)

The post Otto Preminger – The Human Factor (1979) first appeared on Cinema of the World.