Mackinnon, Gillies

The Last of the Blonde Bombshells

Perennial Oscar(r) nominee Judi Dench shakes off the dust of period pieces to play a sassy widow looking to recapture a little of the excitement of her youth: she was the star saxophone player of a World War II-era all-girl dance band. Yanking her instrument from mothballs, she starts blowing the old standards as a street musician, much to the horror of her cultured children (they prefer symphonies to swing classics), and then hatches a plan to track down her band mates for a gala reunion at her granddaughter's school dance. The script carries little suspense and few surprises, but the cast is a delight. Ian Holm costars as the band's womanizing drummer (in a dress and a platinum blonde wig), a rascally old rogue who seduced almost every member during their brief wartime run and married half of them in the intervening years. Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck) is their trombonist, a hard-drinking American widow living it up in a Scottish castle; jazz great Cleo Laine is a trumpeter turned torch singer; and Leslie Caron cameos as their brassy bass player. Joan Sims (a fixture of the Carry On movies), Billie Whitelaw (Quills), and June Whitfield (the mother on Absolutely Fabulous) are among the great British character actors who join the fun. The old broads bring sass to the sentimentality in this fluffy, feel-good, made-for-cable comedy, insisting there is not only life after 60, but that it swings sweetly if only you let it. --Sean Axmaker

A Simple Twist of Fate

A Simple Twist of Fate, Steve Martin's second adaptation of a classic (after his Roxanne-ization of Cyrano de Bergerac), is a melancholy, dramatic comedy about a recluse coming out of his shell. Suggested by George Eliot's Silas Marner, this isn't a cutesy picture akin to Father of the Bride. It's much more heartfelt, gentle, and satisfying, as long as you accept its traditional and predictable conclusions. Scorned by life, Michael McCann (Martin) lives in an auburn-tinted town and goes on with his colorless life. That is, until an abandoned child is left on his doorstep, and he adopts her. A custody battle ensues years later with far too many cheap, unconvincing courtroom dramatics in which money is the root of all evil, but the tone and wholesomeness of the story are special. Gabriel Byrne pulls off a nearly unplayable role as the town's aristocrat with fine underplayed support by Catherine O'Hara and youngster Alana Austin. The wonderful score is by Cliff Eidelman. --Doug Thomas

Big-screen favorite Steve Martin (FATHER OF THE BRIDE) shines in this heartwarming motion picture about a single dad who discovers the joys and pain of fatherhood after adopting a daughter. All is well with this special relationship until a local politician attempts to come between them. As they fight to remain a family, the bond between father and daughter is strengthened. With an all-star cast that features winning performances from Gabriel Byrne (POINT OF NO RETURN), Stephen Baldwin (THREESOME), and Catherine O'Hara (HOME ALONE), A SIMPLE TWIST OF FATE is a captivating movie treat that's sure to entertain you!

Tara Road

Marilyn Vine's (Andie MacDowell) idyllic life in Connecticut is devastated by the tragic death of her only son Dale during his 15th birthday party. 3,000 miles away, Ria Lynch's (Olivia Williams) marriage comes to a stunningly abrupt end in Dublin, Ireland, when husband Danny (Iain Glen) reveals that he is leaving her for his pregnant mistress, Bernadette (Heike Makatsch). An accidental phone call brings these two otherwise unrelated women together and, in their mutual need for space and time alone, they agree to a two-month house exchange. In swapping homes, both women slowly find healing and strength through new surroundings and the kindness of others and gradually learn to accept the reality of their changed lives.

Behind the Lines

This extraordinary World War I film concerns themes of heroism, sacrifice, duty, and self-knowledge as profound as any in Saving Private Ryan. The story, taken from Pat Barker's 1991 novel Regeneration and based on true events, is set in a British Army hospital in Craiglockart, Scotland, in 1917. There, a pioneering psychiatrist named Dr. William Rivers (Jonathan Pryce) works with shell-shocked soldiers in a gentle, humane manner that contrasts sharply with the brutality of his colleagues. (The film's most horrifying scene features a mute patient being forced to speak by means of electric shock.)

Among Rivers's patients is a mute, amnesiac officer named Billy Prior (Jonny Lee Miller), as well as the emotionally depleted poet Wilfred Owen (Stuart Bunce) and another poet and war hero, Siegfried Sassoon (James Wilby). Unlike the others, Sassoon is not, in fact, suffering from any disorder but is being quietly punished for writing a pamphlet denouncing the war. The army hopes Rivers can find some basis for mental incompetency in Sassoon, but the thoughtful doctor instead attempts to persuade him to add legitimacy to his criticisms of the war by returning to active duty.

Pryce brilliantly captures the cumulative effects of Rivers's responsibility--of fixing men and sending them back to their possible deaths--on the good doctor's nerves. Wilby is also fine as Sassoon, but the film belongs just as much to actors Miller and Bunce, whose characters are different kinds of men struggling to find their balance, one through a revived sense of duty and the other through his writing. Scottish filmmaker Gillies Mackinnon (The Playboys) is at the top of his form, telling a unique story about the invisible wounds of war while shedding light on the meeting of two visionary poets and one visionary physician. --Tom Keogh

The Playboys

With delicate charm and dignity, The Playboys finds laughter, love, and scandal in a cozy Irish village in 1957. For her disapproving neighbors, it's bad enough that Tara Maguire (Robin Wright, with a fair Irish accent) won't identify the father of her baby, and she's making matters worse by inviting romance with Tom (Aidan Quinn), a carefree actor in a band of traveling players. Constable Hagerty (Albert Finney) is insanely jealous and possessive; he knows Tara's secret while hiding one of his own, and his roiling emotions lead to a climax with dangerous shades of Othello. Oscar®-nominated screenwriter Shane Connaughton (My Left Foot) maintains the gravity of this situation (including a subplot involving IRA smugglers), but never loses track of his character-based humor, especially in the good-natured clash between free spirits and dowdy conservative locals. Filmed in the idyllic Redhills Village of County Cavan, The Playboys is well-acted (especially by Finney) and refreshingly free of blarney. --Jeff Shannon

Bursting with all the fiery elements that make great love stories memorable, The Playboys is "a beautiful, moving and gripping film" (The Hollywood Reporter). Boasting "excellent performances"(Variety) by Albert Finney, Aidan Quinn and Robin Wright this "lovely and enveloping film weaves magic" (The New York Times)! Tara (Wright), the most irresistible woman in a small Irish village, is also the most scorned when she refuses to reveal the identity of her baby's father. Under pressure by Constable Hegarty (Finney) to accept his hand in marriage, Tara rejects his proposaland falls instead for a dashing actor (Quinn). But as their affair heats up, a jealous Hegarty threatens to expose Tara's secret and destroy the only happiness she's ever known.

Pure

Ten-year-old Paul (Harry Eden) lives with his mother Mel (Molly Parker) and his younger brother Lee (Vinni Hunter). Paul slowly begins to realize that his mother is an addict. With the help of local waitress Louise (Keira Knightley) Paul tries to rescue his mother from her boyfriend and local dealer Lenny (David Wenham) in this powerful family drama.System Requirements:Runtime: 94 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 825284200201 Manufacturer No: #000202K4D

Hideous Kinky

Hideous Kinky journeys back to the early 1970s to Marrakesh, that hippy mecca for everyone from Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix to Gillies MacKinnon, the director of this movie. Here you'll find one nice but confused middle-class young woman escaping the daily grind of a drab London with her two young daughters in tow. Whereas Esther Freud's book was told from the younger girl's perspective, the film-script places Julia centre-stage as she searches for what she describes wistfully as "the annihilation of the ego."

Though fresh from her Titanic experience, Kate Winslet is no drippy hippy, bringing a refreshing feistiness to her role and looking fetching swathed in diaphanous layers. As her two daughters, Bella Riza (Bea, the wide-eyed younger one) and Carrie Mullan (Lucy, the sensible one) are brilliant discoveries--unselfconscious, charmingly quirky, and enjoying a camaraderie that belies their difference in characters. Completing the family unit is Julia's lover, the endearingly unreliable Bilal (a fiery performance from Saïd Taghmaoui). When the money runs out, their adventures begin and the resilience and practicality of the girls is contrasted throughout with the dreaminess of their mother, her sense of duty vying with her quest for self-discovery. Visually, it's a veritable feast as we're pitched from the color and cacophony of the marketplace to the dusty harshness of the mountains. And that elusive title--which is never explained in the film--is in fact a phrase coined by the girls as a term of approbation. --Harriet Smith

The Escapist

Denis (Jonny Lee Miller), a man whose life is shattered by a single criminal act in which his youngwife is killed in a bungled break-in attempt by a career criminal called Ricky Barnes (Andy Serkis). Denis, for whom life up to then had seemed perfect, cannot cope with his loss, and dedicates his life to tracking down the man responsible. It is a pursuit which requires him not only to be sent to jail, but to be sent to the worst - or, as the prison service would have it, the most secure - jail in Britain: Sullen Voe.

The History of Mr Polly

Gunpowder, Treason & Plot [Region 2]