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| ![St Trinian's [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WWBMTebjL._SL500_.jpg)
| Directors: Oliver Parker, Barnaby Thompson
Actors: Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Jodie Whittaker, Russell Brand, Tallulah Riley
Studio: Entertainment in Video
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy Used: £2.94
You Save: £17.05 (85%)
New (24) Used (9) from £2.94
Rating:  68 reviews
Sales Rank: 83
Format: Pal
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region: 2
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5017239195570
ASIN: B0012RN02K
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: April 14, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 68
 A school reunion worth attending October 27, 2008
B. Mccann (Balckpool, England)
When I first heard that a new version of St. Trinians was in production, I thought "Why bother?" Yes, the original trilogy of 1950s films, based on Ronald Searle's anarchic and sometimes macabre cartoons (possibly Britain's answer to the Adams Family cartoons in America) are classics, still enjoyable to this day. The 1965 attempt to restart the series in colour (The Great St Trinians Train Robbery) was amusing, but a shadow of the former films. The 1980 attempt at revival, The Wildcats of St. Trinians, fell flat both creatively and in terms of box office. One was left with the impression that while the idea of a school where pupil anarchy rules the day was a wild, comic conceit in the 1950s, by 1980 it was becoming all too horribly real. br / br /So what a surprise this bawdy, laugh-out-loud comedy turns out to be. More a re imagining than remake, it successfully updates the concept by making it less "jolly hockey sticks" and more girls with attitude. This does not in any way compromise the spirit of the original, which is recalled very early on in this film when prospective new pupil Annabelle (Tallulah Riley) looks out of a window to see a another pupil tied to the end of a rope and being dragged along the ground by a tractor. But the anarchic element is now located in the context of "Girl Power." These Trinians kids are empowered young women complete with make overs, style gurus and ambitions to make it onto TV`s Love Island. br / br /The modern school is a hierarchy of today's tribes of girl youth culture. Posh totty, chavs, brainy geeks and emo kids. Slang is updated to the language of today and there are also references to current films and shows such as Ugly Betty, plus a special appearance by Girls Aloud performing a brand new Trinians school song. br / br /Rupert Everett follows in the Alistair Sim tradition of doubling up in the roles of a dragged up headmistress, Miss Fritton, and her dodgy, art dealer brother Carnaby. Camilla Fritton is a gin swigging, chain smoking, middle aged Debutante, clad in a riot of outlandish costumes from Elizabethan garb to pink jumpsuit, topped off with bunny-like front teeth. This Miss Fritton is inspired more by her namesake the Duchess of Cornwall as Alistair Sim's original creation. br / br /Colin Firth is perfect as the stiff education minister determined to close the troublesome school down, a role supported by in jokes that mercilessly send up Firth`s career. He gets ankle humped by a small dog called D'Arcy (Pride Prejudice and Bridget Jones), falls into a fountain (Bridget Jones: Edge Of Reason), resulting in a wet white shirt (a la Pride Prejudice). br / br /The plot is simple. Firth's educational minister wants the school closed as a feather in his political. Career. He is, of course, frustrated in this task by the machinations of teachers and pupils, but the school's mounting debts looks set to do the job for him. Cue Flash Harry, played in updated, Big Daddy form by Russell Brand, who gives the girls a lesson in the how to raise funds through means of heist. br / br /The film is filled with amusing incidentals, including a sub plot where a St Trinians team enter a TV Top of the Form quiz show, ensuring success via short range transmitters and Google. One of the funniest highlights is a recreation of the brutal hockey match from the original film, this time against Cheltenham College for Girls. As the rival team take to the pitch, the Trinians supporters chant "Who let the dogs out." br / br /The Times gave this film four stars and well deservedly so. It inspires grins and guffaws, if not laugh aloud hilarity. It is also a production of the recently revived Ealing Studios and it is refreshing to see the old logo back on the silver screen. Long may it stay. br / br / br /
 Jolly hockey sticks September 26, 2008
R. Griffiths (UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a riot this is! I was hesitant at first, largely because I tend to get my knickers in a knot over modern teenagers (chavs? emos? huh?) but I want to be one NOW! I always wanted to go to boarding school (too much Enid Blyton as a child) but who needs Malory Towers? It's got a great soundtrack, the girls look fantastic, there's a strong message of solidarity and Rupert Everett always makes me laugh. This will become one of my must-sees on horrid winter evenings or when I'm in need of a boost. If only we'd sung a school song along those lines - we'd certainly have sung a lot louder! Watch this. It's great.
A guilty pleasure: sexist and silly but still entertaining September 20, 2008
Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK)
br /This 2007 remake of "The Belles of St Trinians" is sexist, backward looking, amoral, and an open celebration of the silliest kind of "Girl Power" ladette culture. It is also one of the funniest and most entertaining films I've seen in the past couple of years. br / br /Like the original, it tells the story of a horrible girl's school where the pupils are impossibly naughty: facing bankruptcy, they turn to the idea of stealing something famous and valuable to get the reward by returning it (a racehorse in the original, Vermeer's painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" in this version.) br / br /The basic concept and humour is pretty close to the spirit of the original, set in a 21st century setting, although the humour is more "in your face" and less subtle, and there is a greater range of characters represented by the girls, from "geeks" who are expert computer hackers to "goths" and "EMOs". br / br /In the first St Trinian's film the pupils did not appear on screen for several minutes and during this initial warm-up the film gradually built up expectations that the girls of St Trinian's were terrifying and dangerous, long before you actually saw the first gymnslip. For example, it showed scenes with the citizens of the local town boarding up their shops and the local bobby locking himself in his own cell as soon as they hear that term is about to start and the pupils of St Trinian's are about to arrive. By contrast the 2007 film begins with a new girl (Tallulah Riley) arriving at the St Trinian's and being shown round by the head girl (Gemma Arterton), an introduction which soon makes dramatically obvious that this is not a normal school. br / br /One area in which this film does manage to be more sophisticated than the fifties and sixties originals is the development of the characters of the schoolgirls themselves. In the original the sixth-formers were presented as two-dimensional scheming minxes, and the fourth-formers and below as a destructive force of nature, with the most amusing roles written for the adults. In the 2007 film more of the focus is on the girls themselves. br / br /Many of the ideas and adult characters are a complete lift from "The Belles of St Trinians" and the other three original films. br / br /The Alistair Sim double role as both the St Trinian's Headmistress, Miss Fritton, and her corrupt brother Carnaby Fritton, is played by Rupert Everitt. He carries it off nearly as well as Alistair Sim did, which is saying a lot. br / br /The George Cole role, as local spiv "Flash Harry" is taken by Russell Brand, who basically plays it as his usual TV persona. Fortunately this works. Also playing himself is Stephen Fry as the quizmaster of the "Top-of-the-form" style quiz, "Schools challenge." br / br /Lena Headey, (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) shows her adaptability by playing a fussy middle-class, conventional teacher, fairly similar to the Joyce Grenfell role in the original films, although the 2007 character is not an undercover policewoman. For me there was considerable extra amusement value from watching this because of the contrast with Lena's current TV role: her character in this film is far more easily terrorised by little girls than her "Sarah Connor" character is by lethal "Terminator" killer robots. br / br /Colin Firth plays the Schools Minister who is determined to clear up bad schools, starting with St Trinian's, but who comes off worst. Firth is an excellent piece of casting, particularly in making some rather painful and humiliating "accidents" at the hands of the St Trinian's girls look real and amusing. br / br /The infamous Hockey match scene from "The Belles of St Trinian's" is re-created, and this is another area where the film actually improves a little on the original. In the 1950's, the idea of presenting a girl's hockey team as dangerous psychopaths was novel, so the 1954 film could get away with presenting the rival school headteacher as an utterly upright and conventional woman, the rival team as ordinary and well-behaved, strongly hinting without being too explicit that the vistors get beaten up and hospitalised with no justification whatsoever, and it was funny because it was outrageous. br / br /In the 21st century, where violence in sport is sadly neither unusual or a taboo subject, the film makers had to be cleverer to make the film funny without completely losing the sympathy of the audience. So instead of making St Trinian's psychopaths and the visitors harmless and innocent victims, they made the captain of the visiting team (who also happens to be the School's minister's daughter) a dangerous bully, and the visiting Headmistress (played by Anna Chancellor) a hypocrite who is quite willing to turn a Nelsonian blind eye to aggression from her own side providing it is made to look like an accident. br / br /So this time it is the visting "Cheltenham Ladies" who rashly start the rough stuff - but boy, do St Trinian's finish it. br / br /Other performers who put in some excellent acting include supermodel (and real-life Cambridge undergraduate) Lily Cole as the leader of the "Geeks", Celia Imrie as the school's Matron and Toby Jones as the hapless bursar, and Jodie Whitaker as the spaced-out school secretary and receptionist. br / br /Antonia Bernath, Tamsin Egerton, and Amara Khan are the St Trinian's team in the "schools challenge" competition, Mischa Barton, and Kathryn Drysdale also appear. br / br /The film finishes with a disco in which the pop group "Girls Aloud" dressed as schoolgirls and obviously enjoying themselves are singing an updated version of the St Trinian's anthem while most of the cast dance to it. An extended version of this song is one of the extras, and I have to confess that I have found some of this running through my head since watching the film ... br / br /"Scam all the toffs, the neats and the freaks br /Blackmail the goths, the slappers and the geeks br /And if they complain, we'll do it all again br /We do as we damn well please! br / br /ASBO the chavs, the EMOs and their mates br /To torment the slags, we offer special rates, br /And if they complain, we'll do it all again br /Defenders of Anarchy. br / br /(Chorus) br /Check out our battle cry, br /A song to terrify, br /No one can stand in our way ..... br / br /I cannot pretend that this is a great work of art, and the "12" certificate is justified if not a little too liberal. This film should not be shown to anyone who isn't old enough to understand that the values the film appears to espouse, including glamorising crime and violence, and overt displays of sexuality by schoolgirls, are being satirised, not supported. br / br /Nevertheless it is highly entertaining.
 Good film, wrong time September 13, 2008
Jenny Wren (England)
This film is fun and well-made, with some excellent performances, notably from Rupert Everett and Colin Firth, but its ultimate failure is down more to the times in which we live than the film itself. The original St Trinians celebrated anarchy in a repressed world, but these days it is hard to find anything funny in the idea of schoolgirl violence, because it is a commonplace reality. Ronald Searle's cartoons of children distilling gin were hilarious - but who finds it funny now that children sell drugs, or 'moonshine' so strong it kills people? The producers have done their best to tackle this problem, and tried to keep their violent stars the 'underdogs' by depicting the 'rich girls' school' as even more violent and prone to bullying, but it doesn't quite come off. In fairness, I am middle -aged, and younger people might enjoy this a lot more than I did. There is a genuine attempt to create a moral 'core', in that the suggestions of one schoolgirl to raise money by kidnapping and mutilating a rich person are dismissed as 'sick', and also one slightly unconvincing effort to be uplifting, by having a message that the pursuit of celebrity is less important than fulfilling one's own potential. br /Otherwise, it's colourful, tense in the right places, funny in others, and IF YOU CAN FORGET THE REAL WORLD AROUND YOU it's an enjoyable night in.
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