For those of us who think Tom Stoppard is the greatest English playwright since Shakespeare, the DVD release of the movie of his first play has been eagerly anticipated since that date about six years ago when we put it on our Amazon wish list. The 1967 play introduced Stoppard’s conceit of a play within a Shakespeare play (later used to such great effect in Shakespeare in Love) to take on the big themes of whether it’s better to be alive or dead if you happened to be buried in a box, what we can and can’t know, and, in a great sight gag that was cut off the side in the VHS version, Newton’s conservation of momentum. Gary Oldman and Tim Roth are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern–or is it the other way around?
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