Brideshead Revisited

More box office records crumbled as Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight continued its vertiginous climb. Heath Ledger's psychotic Joker seduced viewers nationwide to the tune of $75.6 million this weekend, making his movie the country's favorite once again—and by a $45.6 million margin. Here in Gotham's real-world counterpart, The Dark Knight claimed $1.1 million in sales—a full $772,704 over second-place Step Brothers.

The Times tells us The Dark Knight's $75.6 million is "the best second-weekend gross in recent Hollywood history." (An impressive figure for sure, though we wonder just how "recent.") And with $314.2 million in domestic sales since its July 18 opening, The Dark Knight also scored a record for the highest-grossing opening ten days in Hollywood history.  read more »

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
RUNNING TIME 135 minutes
WRITTEN BY Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies
DIRECTED BY Julian Jarrold
STARRING Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Greta Scacchi, Hayley Atwell

Here it is at last: the intelligent movie filmgoers have waited for all year. The film version of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited transforms one of the quintessential novels of the 20th century into one of the grandest, most enriching films of 2008. The 11-part 1981 miniseries was such a milestone in TV history that purists who watch the four-volume DVD set might squabble about the merits of reducing so much artistry into an almost two-and-a-half-hour film.  read more »

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
RUNNING TIME 135 minutes
WRITTEN BY Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies
DIRECTED BY Julian Jarrold
STARRING Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Hayley Atwell, Greta Scacchi, Michael Gambon

Julian Jarrold’s Brideshead Revisited, from a screenplay by Jeremy Brock and Andrew Davies, is based on the seductively class-ridden novel by Evelyn Waugh. This literary masterpiece has, strangely, never been made into a movie, though it was the source of a popular 12-hour television miniseries that aired in 1981, with Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and Diana Quick in the lead roles now assigned to British newcomers Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell.  read more »