CD-Charts Position 1
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Spooks: Complete BBC Series 6 [2007]

starring: Peter Firth, Rupert Penry-Jones, Hermione Norris, Raza Jaffrey, Hugh Simon

Release Date October 06, 2008
Series six does not reallly measure up to the high standards Spooks has set. First of all, visually it's much more conventional than the earlier series. But stories and characters were always Spooks' strongest assets. The stories are just not as gripping as they used to be and they seem to be running out of ideas. The first two episodes are about biological warfare, the third is about chemical warfare. The development of the storylines is sometimes not very convincing in terms of arriving at a solution. Too often there is the deus ex machina which is not satisfying. The characters are interesting as always, particularly nerw arrival Connie. Ros was never my favourite character but now she defintely develops in s very strange way. That in itself ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
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Tess Of The D'Urbervilles [2008]

starring: Gemma Arterton, Eddie Redmayne, Ruth Jones, Hans Matheson

Release Date October 27, 2008
I thought this new BBC dvd was quite good - until near the end when Tess
and Angel are hiding in the empty mansion and we are suddenly confronted
with and orgy of nudity and sex. I think the BBC have lost the plot.
Thomas Hardy's text certainly does not call for such an exhibition.
I think the older versions available have more integrity and artistic
merit.

CD-Charts Position 3
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Sense And Sensibility (Collector's Edition) [1996]

starring: Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, James Fleet, Tom Wilkinson, Harriet Walter
directed by: Ang Lee

Release Date February 06, 2006
Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee with a screenplay written by Emma Thompson, made up one part of the holy trinity of Austen productions which aired in 1995. That crowning year for Austenmania began with the BBC production of Persuasion in April 1995 (starring Amanda Root and Ciáran Hinds), followed by the impeccable BBC version of Pride and Prejudice (starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle) in September and October, and was capped off in mid-December by this film version of Sense and Sensibility. Emma Thompson's much-praised screenplay (for which she won an Oscar and a Golden Globe) straddles the difficult divide between pleasing the community of Jane Austen purists and making the 1811 novel appealing to a wider audience of cinema-goers with ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 4
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Bridget Jones's Diary [2001]

starring: Renee Zellweger, Honor Blackman, Embeth Davidtz, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant
directed by: Sharon Maguire

Release Date December 20, 2004
The story of Bridget Jones first began as a diary collumn in a newspaper, rose to success in book form (then it's sequel) and then finally hit the movies in 2001 with Briget played quite perfectly by the lovely Renee Zellwegger.

This modern take on Pride and Predjudice follows the female protagonist Briget Jones who decides to keep a diary of her life; unlike the Mary-Jane all too perfect characters in most stories and movies of today, Bridget is quite literally EVERY woman you've ever known.

Bridget is a 30-something urban singleton on the look for love - perhaps in the wrong places. She's an ever so slightly overweight (Zellwegger put on weight specifically for the movie) office worker who reads self-help books religiously, and ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
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Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason [2004]

starring: Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent
directed by: Beeban Kidron

Release Date July 03, 2006
Unfortunately, this is miles away from being as good as the books or the first film. They changed the plot so they could shoe-horn Hugh Grant into the film (and a not very good fight scene with Colin Firth as well). But so much worse is the sense that Bridget has been made into a figure of fun, rather than someone who was funny because we related to her. Not funny, not romantic, even Colin Firth is less lovely in this film.

CD-Charts Position 6
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The Oscar Wilde BBC Collection : The Importance Of Being Earnest / The Picture Of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan (3 Disc Box Set)

starring: John Gielgud, Joan Plowright, Jeremy Brett, Susan Hampshire, Rupert Frazer
directed by: Stuart Burge, John Gorrie, Rudolph Cartier, Tony Smith

Release Date May 30, 2005
I bought this set some time ago, but have just re-watched some of the plays and was again impressed with the high standard of acting and production. For example, the version of An Ideal Husband is so much better than the recent film of that name. The latter seems so shallow in comparison and made the mistake of re-writing Wilde's words.
If you like Oscar wilde's writing you'll enjoy this set.

CD-Charts Position 7
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Wilde [1997]

starring: Stephen Fry, Jude Law, Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle, Gemma Jones
directed by: Brian Gilbert

Release Date April 27, 2006
This was an informative and sensitive portrayal of the life of Oscar Wilde. Julian Mitchell weaves in the script lots of Wildean witticisms, and the pity of his Oscar's genius abused comes across. Having read about Wilde's death, I would have liked the film to have ended with that scene. It could have been an English Cyrano de Bergerac.

An enjoyable and rich English film which doesn't quite earn classic status.

CD-Charts Position 8
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On The Black Hill [1987]

starring: Nicola Beddoe, Bob Peck, Catherine Schell, Patrick Godfrey, Gemma Jones
directed by: Andrew Grieve

Release Date March 31, 2008
I first saw this film on Channel 4 in 1989; it was scheduled as a tribute to Bruce Chatwin. I thought it was a fantastic film then, so I bought the book, which is wonderful too. The film is beautiful to look at, well scripted(faithful to the novel) and the acting is excellent, especially the late Bob Peck who captures Amos well. Seeing the film on DVD again years later you realise what an undiscovered gem it really is, a bit like Jean de Florette but with much more pathos and instead of sunny Provence the brooding Black Mountains.

CD-Charts Position 9
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Pennies From Heaven [1978]

starring: Bob Hoskins, Cheryl Campbell, Gemma Craven, Kenneth Colley, Jenny Logan

Release Date May 31, 2004
By the time Pennies From Heaven was first broadcast in the spring of 1978, writer Dennis Potter - the enfant-terrible of British televisual drama - had already attracted a fair share of positive and negative criticism for his preceding works, Moonlight on the Highway, Double Dare and Casanova. This troika of bleak works, all of which were deeply self-referential and used the subtext of popular songs as an underpinning for the dark themes lurking beneath the polite veneer of normality, would very much define the style and concept of Pennies From Heaven, with Potter being awarded a greater degree of control over his material for the first time following the success of the three plays listed above and, of course, the mass tabloid controversy surrounding his previous piece, Brimstone ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 10
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Paperhouse [1989]

starring: Ben Cross, Charlotte Burke, Glenne Headly, Gemma Jones, Elliot Spiers
directed by: Bernard Rose

Release Date September 24, 2007
i remember watching paperhouse as a child, and it left quite an impression, as an adult i wasn't dissapointed in this re-make at all, i was totally engrossed from start to finish, it had me jumping off my seat in parts, it was well played, the storyline is excellent.