Articles about the Featured Categories

Beautifully shot, with beautiful people, ahhhh, its just so lovely! For some this type of film may have them running for the sick bucket, but for others its just fine to switch off from reality for a couple of hours, and enjoy it!

Hugh Grant, Kiera Knightley, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson all put in a fine performace to make this another great British offering, and a cracking feel good film.

If you enjoyed the likes of Four Weddings, Notting Hill and About a Boy, then this is right up you street.

'The Plank' is an absolute classic, funny, hilarious. I have watched it umpteen times and I still find myself lying on the floor, laughing my butts off when I watch it again. I like to show it to my students in English lesson to demonstrate 'British humour', and then I sit in my corner finding it ravingly funny. My (German) students are mostly mildly interested. 'The Plank' obviously is British humour that does not offer its virtues to German teenagers at once. At least I had an enjoyable lesson, ain't that important ? I am now ordering a new copy since my old one is wearing out.

Psst: don't tell anybody, but in Free Willy 2 the whale and all of his whale pals and relatives, are either computer-generated images or old-fashioned miniatures (models). The humans in this film are reasonably real, however, including Jason James Richter, returning to his role as the former delinquent whose advocacy for an imprisoned Orca whale turned his life around in Free Willy. You may recall that Willy jumped the aquarium fence, so to speak, at the end of that 1993 family film, and regrouped in open seas with the pod from which he had been cruelly snatched. This 1995 sequel again finds Willy in trouble at the hands of the civilised world, this time due to an oil slick and explosion that may very well kill him or cause him to be locked away again. Meanwhile, Richter's growing character has other problems, including a troublesome half-brother and the rumblings of puppy love. One way in which this film is superior to its predecessor is a greater range of visual opportunities, namely shooting out on the ocean instead of in the whale hero's old tank. Of course, it helps that master cinematographer László Kovács (Five Easy Pieces) is behind the camera. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

I must admit I don't like Greenaway as a rule, and I find Prospero one of Shakespeare's least appealing characters. But this film is quite extraordinary in all sorts of respects. Nyman's music is fantastic, and used here to good effect (Nyman didn't think so, and broke up with Greenaway as a result, but that's his problem). Ditto Sarah Leonard's singing. An ancient Gielgud is splendid as Prospero. Michael Clark's performance as Caliban has to be seen to be believed. The visuals are unlike anything else you have ever seen. (What sort of casting agency can come up with about 100 people aged from about 5 to about 80, all naked for all of the time? Perhaps they are the members of a naturist club? They play the "spirits" of the island.) The idea of focusing on the Books is original, and developed to good effect. If this film has a weak point, it is Miranda. Isabelle Pasco's acting is wooden (maybe we're spoilt by Toyah Wilcox's performance in Jarman's Tempest film).
Why no DVD? One of the mysteries of modern life.
Incidentally there is a "book of the film" consisting of photos of the cast mostly "off-stage". It's called Prospero's Subjects, was published in Japan and is almost impossible to get hold of. But worth trying.

I got the feeling, after watching this film, that I was supposed to be lying limp on the sofa, overcome with admiration at the cleverness of the plotting and the style of the director. I wasn't completely won over though. It's certainly plot driven, and demands a lot of viewer attention; if you look away from the screen for a second you will probably miss an important development. But it's more complicated than ingenious, and working out what is happening is impeded, at times, by slack editing and flashbacks which are only signified by a ludicrous change of hairstyle on the part of the characters. I was also irritated by the contrived and pretentious visual motifs - characters constantly looking through windows, flames engulfing things in slow motion- it tries to be Peter Greenaway, but is really more at the level of a Meatloaf video. Another shortcoming is the unremitting and melodramatic score, which reminds one of a tv episode of 'Poirot'. All that aside, however, this isn't a bad movie. It's best to regard it as a comedy of errors, I suppose, since that's the unreal world of coincidences, false impressions and lost letters it chooses to inhabit, and the references to Shakespeare within the movie also suggest this. The performances are great too (Vincent Cassel is outstanding as the selfish but somehow sympathetic hero) and the whole daft, complicated plot keeps you guessing, and ties up nicely at the end. Maybe 3 and a half stars...

Personally I think these two stories are long overdue for DVD release. Whilst the earlier reviewer's comments about the quality of the stories are mostly true, I think that they're missing the point - as with much late sixties and early seventies 'Who' there IS a lot of padding, however, there is also a decent amount of dialogue, and interplay between the characters that is generally missing in today's high-speed, action-oriented Doctor Who.
The (mostly) Earthbound Doctor and his UNIT colleagues have formed a tight-knit group by this stage in the series, and there is some particularly amusing badinage between The Doctor and The Brigadier and the latter and Sergeant Benton in `The Time Monster'. In one memorable scene The Brig sneers at The Doctor's yellow Edwardian Roadster - Bessie - telling him not to "lag too far behind". The Doctor subsequently presses his `super speed' button and Bessie tears past The Brigadier's UNIT jeep leaving him red-faced and fuming!
The Master plays his usual role of megalomaniacal super-criminal in both stories but is more involved in `The Time Monster' where he uses human scientists as well as the High Priest of a mythical land to aid him in summoning the eponymous being to help him enslave the universe.
`Colony in Space' is the more pedestrian of the two stories but Producer Barry Letts leaves plenty of room for character exposition and The Third Doctor's first adventure on an alien planet is a welcome departure from the UNIT-centred Earthbound tales that surround this story. It is worth listening to the BBC audio version of this story; released in 2007 it shows exactly how much padding could have gone into the story; we should be thankful!
Overall, these are two robust stories from arguably the best era of Doctor Who: Sit down, pull-up a plate of cheese and a good red, and immerse yourself in some quality nostalgia.

I have worked through the 10 minute miracle at the beginning of this tape so many times that I have worn it out! It is a really good toning routine that can be used on a daily basis and fitted in to a really busy day. It made me feel very relaxed and 'loosened up'. I recommend this. I only wish it was available in DVD then it wouldn't wear out!