 The Dark Crystal 1982  PG, 93 min.
Genre: Family / Animation / Adventure / Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Director: Jim Henson
Cast: Jim Henson, Kathryn Mullen, Frank Oz, Steve Whitmire, Louise Gold, Brian Muehl, Bob Payne, Dave Goelz, John Baddeley, Mike Quinn, Tim Rose, Hugh Spight, Jean-Pierre Amiel, David Greenaway, Kiran Shah
Jim Henson creates a world where evil Skeksis rule. Gelflings can reclaim their lost world from the Skeksis by replacing a shard, which has been taken from the Dark Crystal. Henson shows his dark side in this clever film about good and evil.
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 The Pirates of Penzance 1983   G, 112 min.
Genre: Musical
Director: Wilford Leach, Joshua White
Cast: Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, Linda Ronstadt, George Rose, Rex Smith, Tony Azito, David Hatton, Louise Gold, Teresa Codling, Nancy Wood, Tilly Vosburgh
From Gilbert and Sullivan's light opera, this musical is adapted to film in an upbeat performance about a pirate who would like to change his life style and become a respected citizen. 1 User Review
| User Review |
| | The Best Gilbert and Sullivan on Film | 1fatts 03/07/2007 | One of the problems in presenting a "classic" is that the reverence that everyone brings to the project ends up as stodginess, heaviness and "the weight of the bard" on the shoulders of the audience.
What a pleasant surprise this movie was. While this is technically not more than a filming of the prize-winning Joseph Papp stage production, it is a very good, very professional filming. It is funny, bright. The singing is wonderful; everyone is playing for laughs, and you have the sense that if Gilbert and Sullivan had seen this production, they would have have said: "Of course. That's exactly what it should be!" Everyone hams it up and has a wonderful time: Kevin Kline, George Rose, Tony Azito (who won a drama critics award, I believe, for his stage work).
The work is so successful that it is doubley galling that the production is available only on VHS and very hard to find at that. BE WARNED: the DVD version that is available is a filming of the stage production (which did not include Angela Lansbury, no matter what the publicity says) which serves to demonstrate how much better filmed the VHS version was.
There is an online petition (serioiusly) to try to encourage the DVD release of the rare VHS, but who knows what will come of that. Get the VHS, if that is all you can find. . . or rent it, if you have to.
It is a rollicking couple of hours. |
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 Topsy-Turvy 1999 R, 160 min.
Genre: Drama
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Lesley Manville, Eleanor David, Ron Cook, Timothy Spall, Wendy Nottingham, Alison Steadman, Louise Gold, Kevin McKidd, Katrin Cartlidge, Julia Rayner, Andy Serkis, Shirley Henderson
Director Mike Leigh presents a tribute to those well-known Victorian operetta writers: Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and Sullivan (Allan Corduner). The focus is on the London production of "The Mikado" and the tribulations encountered as two distinctly different personalities collaborate on their ninth operetta.
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| 1. The Dark Crystal (1982)
2. The Pirates of Penzance (1983)
3. Topsy-Turvy (1999)
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