Archive for the ‘Biography’ Category
Bugsy (1991)Thursday, March 18th, 2010 |
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New York gangster Ben ‘Bugsy’ Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womaniser with a foul temper, Siegel doesn’t hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea. Search keywords |
Dreams with Sharp Teeth (2008)Saturday, February 27th, 2010 |
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A documentary on speculative fiction writer and essayist Harlan Ellison. |
Enid (2009)Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 |
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Edwardian child Enid Blyton begins to tell stories to her brothers as an escape from their parents’ rows before the father deserts the family… |
Salvador (1986)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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A journalist, down on his luck in the US, drives to El Salvador to chronicle the events of the 1980 military dictatorship, including the assasination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. He forms an uneasy alliance with both guerillas in the countryside who want him to get pictures out to the US press, and the right-wing military, who want him to bring them photographs of the rebels. Meanwhile he has to find a way of protecting his Salvadorean girlfriend and getting her out of the country. |
Margot (2009)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Margot examines the glamorous and turbulent life of Britain’s first international ballet superstar. At the age of 40, Dame Margot Fonteyn (Anne-Marie Duff – The Virgin Queen; Shameless) was seemingly at her creative peak and under mounting pressure to retire gracefully. Her unexpected pairing with young Russian émigré Rudolph Nureyev (Michiel Huisman – The Young Victoria, De Co-assistant) caused a worldwide sensation. Whilst Margot’s marriage to Panamanian diplomat Roberto de Arias (Con O’Neill – Telstar, Criminal Justice) was put under immense strain, her passionate and vibrant relationship with Nureyev created one of the most enduring and celebrated ballet partnerships of all time. This is a timeless drama about love, passion and performance also starring Lindsay Duncan, Derek Jacobi and Penelope Wilton. Search keywords |
Che: Part Two (2008)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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In 1967, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara resigns from his Cuban government posts to secretly make his latest attempt to spread the revolution in Bolivia. However, Che must face grim realities about few troops and supplies, his failing health and a local population who largely does not share his idealistic aspirations. As the US supported Bolivian army prepares to defeat him, Che and his beleaguered force struggle against the increasingly hopeless odds. |
Che: Part One (2008)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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The Argentine, begins as Che and a band of Cuban exiles (led by Fidel Castro) reach the Cuban shore from Mexico in 1956. Within two years, they mobilized popular support and an army and toppled the U.S.-friendly regime of dictator Fulgencio Batista. |
The Straight Story (1999)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Alvin Straight is a very old man with a quiet life in a small country town. When his brother gets seriously sick, he decides to put away their differences and visit him after many, many years. So, alone, he begins a long journey through hundreds of miles, just to see again his brother, even if it’s the last thing he will ever do… Based on a real story. |
Becket (1964)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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As the story opens, King Henry II, who ruled England from 1154 to 1189 has entered Canterbury Cathedral to do penance at the tomb of his former friend, Thomas Becket. Bare to the waist, the king kneels to receive a flogging from Saxon monks. He begins to reminisce, recalling at first the carefree, promiscuous adventures with Becket, then his favorite drinking and wenching companion. A violently emotional drama that probes the changing relationship between two young men – between two close friends bound together by similar pride of flesh and spirit who become deadly enemies as they pursue their separate destinies . . . that of king . . . and saint. |
La môme (2007)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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An un-chronological look at the life of the Little Sparrow, ‘Édith Piaf’ (qv) (1915-1963). Her mother is an alcoholic street singer, her father a circus performer, her paternal grandmother a madam. During childhood she lives with each of them. At 20, she’s a street singer discovered by a club owner who’s soon murdered, coached by a musician who brings her to concert halls, and then quickly famous. Constant companions are alcohol and heartache. The tragedies of her love affair with Marcel Cerdan and the death of her only child belie the words of one of her signature songs, “Non, je ne regrette rien.” The back and forth nature of the narrative suggests the patterns of memory and association. |
Séraphine (2008)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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In 1914, Wilhelm Uhde, a famous German art collector, rents an apartment in the town of Senlis, forty kilometers away from Paris, in order to write and to take a rest from the hectic life he has been living in the capital. The cleaning lady is a rather rough-and-ready forty-year-old woman who is the laughing stock of others. One day, Wilhelm who has been invited by his landlady, notices a small painting lying about in her living room. He is stunned to learn that the artist is no other than Séraphine. |
Il divo (2008)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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The story of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, who has been elected to Parliament seven times since is was established in 1946. |
Phar Lap (1983)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Phar Lap, the legendary Australian racing horse, is as well-known today for his mysterious death as for his fabulous accomplishments in life. Beginning at the end, the film flashes back to the day that Phar Lap, despite his lack of pedigree, is purchased on impulse by trainer Harry Telford. Phar Lap loses his first races, but Telford’s faith in the animal is unshakable. Suddenly the horse becomes a winner, thanks to the love and diligence of stableboy Tommy Woodcock. American-promoter Dave Davis arranges for Phar Lap to be entered in several top races, where his “long shot” status results in heavy losses for the professional gamblers. Just after winning an important race in Mexico, Phar Lap collapses and dies; though the film never comes out and says as much, it is assumed that the horse was “murdered” by the gambling interests. |
The Sound of Music (1965)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Captain Baron von Trapp is a widowed ex-naval officer with seven children who serve only to remind him of his deceased wife. The Von Trapp home is thus turned into a gloomy place of order and discipline, until the arrival of a new governess: Frauline Marie who is from a nearby Salzburg abbey. Marie shows the Von Trapp children the miracle of the Sound of Music, and teaches them how to sing. Captain von Trapp’s heart opens up to feelings he had forgotten and he and Marie fall in love. Marie and Georg von Trapp are married, only to have their world brought down around them by the 1938 Anschluss of Austria, where Nazi Germany takes control of the country and demands that Captain von Trapp assume a position in the German Navy. |
I Am a Sex Addict (2005)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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In the moments before his third marriage, Caveh Zahedi looks into the camera and flashes back to a vividly disturbing yet poignant story of his long obsession with prostitutes and how that obsession has served to destroy his previous marriages and relationships. Can Caveh overcome his addiction and finally succeed in a relationship? |
Ned Kelly (2003)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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This film is based on “Our Sunshine” by Robert Drew, a novel based on the life of Australian bushranger and icon, Ned Kelly. It tells of his life as a bushranger in north-west Victoria, where he lived all his life. He, his brother Dan, and two other men, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne, formed a gang. These four robbed a bank and hijacked an entire town for 3 days. They killed three policemen who were hunting them. They then took over a pub in Glenrowan, where they basically held a party, waiting for a train full of police to derail at a part of the track that they tore up. However a school teacher warned the train, so the gang and all the others in the pub ended up in a shootout with scores of policemen. |
Stoned (2005)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Fact-based story about the drug-addled and sordid life of The Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones (Leo Gregory). Unfortunately the story moves so quickly into the sensationalized decadence and drug-induced state of Jones, that the unknowing viewer has to wonder why anyone would care. There are only a few framing sequences with members of The Stones, particularly Keith Richards (Ben Whishaw), that show they had a great respect for him and tried to bring him back into the band as he drifted away. Mixed into the destruction of Jones is a common builder, Frank Thorogood, (Paddy Considine), who is given the unenviable task of trying to please Jones by rebuilding his estate and to watch him per Jones’ manager’s (David Morrissey) instructions. Thorogood’s life is so far removed from all of the sex and drugs that he sees, that he envies and desires the tawdry life as well, but never quite fits in. Unfortunately, at least according to this film and according to a supposed death bed confessional of Thorogood in 1993, it led to Thorogood’s murder of Jones in a swimming pool “accident”. Jones’ Swedish girl friend is portrayed by Tuva Nuvotny. Other Stones are played by Luke de Woolfson (Jagger), Josef Altin (Wyman), and James D. White (Watts). The film contains full frontal male and female nudity, frequent graphic sex, constant drug use and profanity, and some violence as Brian beats his girl friend and, of course, the depiction of the murder. |
Private Parts (1997)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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Having always wanted to be a disc-jockey, Howard Stern works his way painfully from radio at his 1970’s college to a Detroit station. It is with a move to Washington that he hits on an outrageous off-the-wall style that catches audience attention. Despite his on-air blue talk, at home he is a loving husband. He needs all the support he can get when he joins NBC in New York and comes up against a very different vision of radio. |
Gotti (1996)Thursday, February 18th, 2010 |
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John Gotti, the head of a small New York mafia crew breaks a few of the old family rules. He rises to become the head of the Gambino family and the most well-known mafia boss in America. He is known as the Dapper Don for his expensive taste in suits, and the Teflon Don because none of the FBI charges against him will stick. Life is good, but suspicion creeps in, and greed, rule-breaking and his high public profile all threaten to topple him. |
Out of Africa (1985)Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 |
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Follows the life of Karen Blixen, who establishes a plantation in Africa. Her life is Complicated by a husband of convenience (Bror Blixen), a true love (Denys), troubles on the plantation, schooling of the natives, war, and catching VD from her husband. |



















