84 Charing Cross Road [DVD] [1986]

Made a few years before Anthony Hopkins found true international superstardom with The Silence of the Lambs, the lovely 84 Charing Cross Road receives a bungled DVD release from Columbia TriStar. Very much in the tradition of future Hopkins hits as Shadowlands and Remains of the Day, the movie actually received an art house theatrical run in the United States, yet it only gets presented in a pan-and-scan version on this DVD. Kudos to Columbia TriStar for giving viewers Korean, Portuguese, Thai, and Chinese language tracks in addition to the usual French and Spanish ones, but that does little for viewers with a working knowledge of English. A melancholy movie brimming over with beautiful scenes that has earned a following of quiet romantics (similar to other British films such as I Know Where I'm Going and Turtle Diary), 84 Charing Cross Road deserves another DVD edition.