Absolute Beginners
List Price:
Our Price: $1.09
You Save: $2.85 (72%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.81 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: David Bowie, Eddie O'Connell, James Fox, Patsy Kensit, Ray DaviesBrand: Absolute
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Absolute Beginners
Movie Review: "Absolute Beginners" Required Viewing for the Serious Film Buff
Summary: 5 Stars
As previously mentioned ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS is a absolute required view for the 'serious film buff'. Every aspect from production to lighting is flawless! It follows the style of the infamous David Lynch or Oliver Stone. This film was so ahead of it's time, it's hard to believe it was made in 1986. The films actors were flawless as was every aspect of the film, including unreal sets, property managment and aquisition, fabulous direction, and a chart topper for Bowie with the single ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS. I highly recommend this as a permanent addition to the archives of Film Noir enthusiasts everywhere!
Summary of Absolute Beginners
Region 1 (US and Canada DVD formats.) / Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Colour, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen - 107 Minutes - New (unplayed), but unsealedA 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
Kansas City Confidential (MGM Film Noir)Sony; Release date: 2007-07-10; DVD
Best price: $0.69
Price in other shops:
Ziggy Stardust: The Motion PictureEMI; Release date: 2003-05-06; DVD
Best price: $12.13
Price in other shops:
Gunslinger's RevengeSony; Release date: 2005-09-06; DVD
Best price: $2.19
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Fell to Earth (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2005-09-27; DVD
Best price: $43.00
The Linguini IncidentDVD
Best price: $31.90
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2010-09-28; DVD
Best price: $17.50
Price in other shops:
Mr. Rice's SecretMTI; Release date: 2004-04-06; DVD
Best price: $3.91
Price in other shops:
David Bowie - OutsideRelease date: 2004-03-01; Music CD
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops:
The HungerWarner Brothers; Release date: 2004-10-05; DVD
Best price: $10.73
Price in other shops:
Absolute BeginnersRelease date: 1993-09-27; Music CD
Best price: $7.12
Price in other shops: