Titus

Period Drama DVD - Acclaimed theater director Julie Taymor (The Lion King) mixes the traditional and modern with abandon in her brilliant, blood-soaked and occasionally black-comic adaptation of one of Shakespeare's lesser-known and most controversial plays, Titus Andronicus. Anthony Hopkins stars as Titus, a Roman general who returns home from war with the Goths only to be caught up in an exchange of increasingly outrageous acts of vengeance. The spectacularly stylized production, designed by Dante Feretti (Interview with the Vampire), moves easily between period and modern settings, even as the soundtrack moves from jazz to Wagner. Hopkins gives a virtuoso performance in the lead, careening through a stunning range of pride, deep despair, and outright lunacy. Jessica Lange plays Titus's foe, Tamora, the Goth queen who becomes the Roman empress, with a menacing femininity helped along by her exotically sexy costumes. Titus is a truly wild ride, as the violence ultimately escalates to alarming proportions of