Meantime 1984  N/R, 104 min.
Genre: Comedy / Drama
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Marion Bailey, Phil Daniels, Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Pam Ferris, Jeff Robert, Alfred Molina, Paul Daly, Tilly Vosburgh, Peter Wight, Leila Bertrand, Hepburn Graham, Eileen Davies, Herbert Norville, Brian Hoskin
In this made-for-British-TV film, the Pollack family–Frank (Jeff Robert), Mavis (Pam Ferris), and their sons Mark (Phil Daniels) and Colin (Tim Roth)–live in a run-down flat in London's East End. Frank is unemployed as are his sons–until Mavis' sister Barbara (Marion Bailey) offers Colin a job wallpapering her home. Mark is jealous of the offer and tries to talk Colin out of taking the job–and problems continue as other family members also manipulate each other.
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Paranoid 2000  N/R, 93 min.
Genre: Thriller
Director: John Duigan
Cast: Jessica Alba, Iain Glen, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Kevin Whately, Ewen Bremner, Mischa Barton, Oliver Milburn, Gary Love, David Fahm, Peter-Hugo Daly, Gina Bellman, Tilly Vosburgh
A famous American model, Chloe (Jessica Alba), is living in England when she attends a party at rock-star Stan's (Iain Glen) home. The next morning, she awakens and realizes that she has been drugged, her date has left her, and she is handcuffed to Stan's bed.
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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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| 1. Meantime (1984)
2. Paranoid (2000)
3. The Pirates of Penzance (1983)
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