Meantime

Amazon.com

This early Mike Leigh film was made for British television in 1983 (released theatrically in 1985), and introduced both Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. Set in the Thatcher era, the story--typically for Leigh--is more a matter of dramatic evolution than a conventionally realized script. The action revolves around a middle-class family whose male members are all on the government dole, and whose matriarch (Marion Bailey) is long-suffering in the sight of her two sons, one a half-wit (Roth) and the other a cynical bum (Phil Daniels). Oldman plays the latter's skinhead pal, mostly a goof with no future, and Alfred Molina portrays a relative of the brothers strongly resistant to nudging their lives in a more constructive direction. The story, such as it is, is actually a series of discrete, deceptively unambitious, and highly entertaining scenes that could just as easily stand on their own as belong to some greater whole. Leigh, not quite fully baked as a filmmaker in the early 1980s, occasionally engages a rather obvious wit, such as shooting a long take in a laundry room from an angle that favors the sight of a washing machine and ignores the characters from the waist up. The remarkable actors, however, are as deeply immersed in their roles as in any of Leigh's work, and the film is ultimately as moving and funny as one expects from this unique director. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews:

5 stars for the film, 0 stars for the sound...........2007-01-24

The soundtrack on this film is truly horrible... HOWEVER, I did find that by adjusting the balance completely to the right, I was able to hear just the dialogue, without the dreadful, invasive sound effects track getting in the way. The DVD is unwatchable unless you do this!

Tim Roth & Gary Oldman is the best..........2003-03-09

This movie is a great movie...to see Tim Roth and Gary Oldman when they first started out is a treat..in this movie they were kids...Roth was around 18-19 when he made this role.
I enjoyed this film a raw and gritty look at a working class family and their friends..the stand out performances are Roth and Oldman incredible.......
..i hope the distributors of Made in Britain makes this movie and the meantime/made in britain double pack availble to regional 1 folks.......

One Star for the DVD only.......2002-03-30

Don't buy this DVD. The sound is bad. The dialect in Leigh's films can be hard enough for us Yanks without having it be virtually inaudible and painfully blotted out by the music. The mix of this DVD is really bad and it spoils the movie. That said, the movie is fantastic; too bad the DVD does it such an injustice.

Don't buy this DVD........2002-03-27

The sound [is bad]. Leigh's characters' dialect is hard enough to understand sometimes but on this DVD the dialogue is inaudible and much softer than the music itself, which blots it out most of the time. Frustrating -- because the movie is fantastic.

A wonderful movie, an awful DVD.......2001-09-09

I'd give the movie five stars. The problem is, the DVD release from Fox Lorber is awful. There's something seriously wrong with the soundtrack; the dialog elements are drowned out by the music, and there's a synchronization problem that often leaves the left and right channel staggered by about half a second. Even more distracting, added sound effects often come from the wrong channel compared to the supposed visual source of the sound.

My guess is that instead of using a properly mixed mono soundtrack, Fox Lorber went back to the multi-channel master tapes for the mono soundtrack and used them as a fake stereo master -- but did a really bad job on the mix.

Amazon.com

Customer Reviews:

5 stars for the film, 0 stars for the sound...........2007-01-24

Tim Roth & Gary Oldman is the best..........2003-03-09

One Star for the DVD only.......2002-03-30

Don't buy this DVD........2002-03-27

A wonderful movie, an awful DVD.......2001-09-09

Whatever the technical explanation, it ruined my enjoyment of the movie.

Average customer rating:
Meantime [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg. 4 Import - Australia ]
Director: Mike Leigh
Manufacturer: Umbrella Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video
General | Foreign & International | Stores | DVD | Video
ASIN: B000E8OKQI

Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 4 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. Languages: English (Dolby Digital 2.0) Synopsis: Colin (Tim Roth, making his screen debut) and his brother Mark (Phil Daniels, who starred in Quadrophenia) are down and out. They live in a squalid flat with their unemployed father, Frank (Jeff Robert), and their put-upon mother, Mavis (Pam Ferris). They're on the dole, and Mark is constantly scrounging for cash and cadging drinks from his friends, among them Coxy (Gary Oldman in his screen debut), a skinhead. Colin, shy and perhaps mentally disabled, has a crush on a good-natured local girl, Hayley (Tilly Vosburgh). But when Coxy brings him over to her apartment, he can only watch helplessly as a rather ugly scene unfolds. Mark, who is constantly mocking Frank's hypocritical and outdated world view, also makes fun of Colin and calls him "Kermit" and "muppet." Barbara (Marion Bailey, who would later appear in All or Nothing), the boys' middle-class aunt, drops by one day and offers Colin work helping her redecorate her house. Colin seems only mildly interested, but his parents pressure him to take the offer. Mark says that Barbara is exploiting Colin, but his family suspects that Mark is just resentful because Barbara didn't offer him the job. On Colin's first day, Mark turns up at Barbara's to learn that Colin hasn't shown up yet. As Mark and Barbara search the neighborhood for Colin, Mark makes insinuations about the state of Barbara's troubled relationship with her husband, John (Alfred Molina). Meantime, conceived and directed by Mike Leigh, was produced for British television, and shown at the 1984 Berlin International Film Festival.

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