"Actor: Christine Dunford"

• Reversal Of Fortune | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £6.22   |  Saving you £6.77 (108.84%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Reversal of Fortune focuses on one of the most intriguing criminal trials of the 1980s, that of Claus von Bülow, who was accused of sending his rich wife Sunny into a permanent coma with an overdose of insulin. Director Barbet Schroeder, working from Nicholas Kazan's evocative, darkly humorous script, turns the story into both a look at the lives of rich folks with too much time on their hands and a whodunit, as lawyer Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) prepares to defend von Bülow (Jeremy Irons) in court. Irons won an Oscar for his spooky, knowing performance, which hints at depths of degeneracy without ever putting a dent in a veneer of bored elegance. The contrast between the hard-charging Dershowitz and his eager-beaver Harvard law students and the eternally languid von Bülow adds unexpected humour. --Marshall Fine

• In A Stranger's Hand | DVD | (25/11/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Wealthy Jack Bauer (Urich) comes to the aid of a mother Laura McKillin whose daughter has been abducted. Together to their horror they discover a dedicated ring of professional child snatchers...

• Ulee's Gold | DVD | (30/03/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Director Victor Nunez's richly photographed Ulee's Gold drew critical acclaim for Peter Fonda's and Patricia Richardson's subtle performances--and premiered as the Festival Centrepiece in 1997's Sundance Film Festival. Vividly photographed and set amid southern Florida's tupelo swamps, the film's narrative hinges on the evolution of a more-than-platonic connection between neighbours Ulysses, "Ulee" for short (Fonda), and Connie (Richardson). Best-known for her role on TV's Home Improvement, Richardson makes a satisfying foray into film with this appropriately smaller role where she manages to hatch out of potential typecasting. Fonda is independent, stubborn, and reserved Ulee anchors the narrative. He is a beekeeper whose struggling small business is all that keeps him focused in the wake of his wife Penelope's death, his daughter-in-law Helen's (Christine Dunford) drug addiction, and the de facto single-parent obligations he takes on to his adolescent granddaughters (notice the Homeric references). Soon the plot twists, however, in the sociopathy of Eddie and Ferris, friends of Ulee's jailed son--a sociopathy that is also the impetus for the family to confront its dysfunction and for Connie and Ulee to see more in each other than mere neighbourliness. Thankfully, Nunez foregoes the bathos of a Hollywood ending and leaves us satisfied on one hand with Helen's healing and Eddie's justice but uncertain, though hopeful, about Ulee's next step. --Erik Macki, Amazon.com