Ivor Novello ca. mid-to-late 1920s. A gay icon of the British stage, the Welsh-born playwright-composer-actor Ivor Novello was also one of the top British film performers of the late 1920s…
What’s “European”? The Constant Gardener with Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes. Directed by Oscar-nominated Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles (City of God, 2003) and mostly set in Kenya, The Constant Gardener…
Hotel Rwanda movie: Facts vs. fiction. Like Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Best Picture Academy Award winner and international box office hit Schindler’s List – about German businessman Oskar Schindler, who is…
Vera Drake with Imelda Staunton. Vera Drake (2004) movie review: At the center of Mike Leigh’s family/socially conscious drama, Imelda Staunton delivers a phenomenal performance as a do-gooding wife and…
About a Boy movie with bon vivant Hugh Grant and Baby: ‘No man has the right to be an island’ message. ‘About a Boy’ movie review: Some men should remain…
Hotel Rwanda with Don Cheadle and Nick Nolte. In the second quarter of 1994, while much of the world was gearing up to the World Cup to be held in…
Margaretta Scott. Margaretta Scott: Things to Come & All Creatures Great and Small actress remembered Margaretta Scott, best remembered for playing the eccentric widow Mrs. Pumphrey in the BBC television…
One of several British Academy Awards “casualties,” Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s sweeping World War I drama A Very Long Engagement received one single BAFTA nomination – in the ghettoized Best Foreign Language…
Frozen movie (2005): Starring Shirley Henderson as a young woman in search of her missing sister, Juliet McKoen’s flawed yet disturbing metaphysical thriller treads the razor-thin line separating sanity from…
9 Songs’ sex scenes have led to censorship concerns in the U.K., but some are now angry that the country’s Keepers of Morals – i.e., the members of the British…
Best British Films ever made? Directed by Carol Reed from a screenplay by Graham Greene, the iconic British production The Third Man was partly financed by an American company, David…
Venice Festival: Starring Imelda Staunton as a one-woman abortion clinic in 1950s England, Mike Leigh’s abortion drama Vera Drake was this year’s Golden Lion winner; Staunton took home the Best…
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie review: Alfonso Cuarón’s hit fantasy about wizards, dementors, and hippogriffs boasts lots of great visual effects, but features precious little cinematic magic.…