The War Bride (2008) Review

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(More customer reviews)Quick Brief Background History - War Brides WWI & WWII
Wartime Britain was host to ten of thousands of allied serviceman lonely and far from home. Many of the young women living around the military camps were swept off their feet by the young visitors romance blossomed and marriages were hastily arranged before the new husbands were posted away to war. More than one hundred thousand British war brides and large numbers of children were given berths on war-time troop transports and sailed the treacherous seas to their new lives their husband's homeland waiting in hope to be together once again. Most were bound for Canada, others to the United States, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Large groups of European women were also transported through Britain and their numbers swell the total departure figures.
Film - The War Bride - London 1941
London, most men were away at war it was the height of the Blitz, things weren't looking so good, spirits needed to be raised high, Lily (Anna Friel) and friends were looking to have fun. There had been a buzz of gossip that allied serviceman were in town, the girls rally, put on their glad rags for dancing to meet some new men. At the war dance Lily meets a Canadian soldier on leave one Charlie Travis (Aden Young) they quickly fall madly in love and with an urgency of being literally under the gun they get married before the week is out, Charlie is soon thereafter called back to the front, Lily now thinks she's also pregnant.
Two Years later, Lily has only seen her husband for thirteen days over the entire course of their marriage. She then receives word from the Canadian Embassy that she and her baby daughter are to live in Canada to wait for her husband's return. Lily's quiet sold on the idea as Charlie had told her about his place the Ranch in Canada, this also means living with her Canadian in-laws.
Remote, rural Spring Hill, Alberta, Canada isn't very welcoming; Lily turns up in her bright red lipstick matching red hat and lots of London cockney spirit, it doesn't sit well with the mother in-law Betty (Brenda Ficker) as she looks in disbelief at what her son has married and is more concerned that she won't be getting Charlie's pay check as this now goes to his new wife. Charlie's crippled sister Sylvia (Molly Parker) finds Lily's brash manner too forward for their simple life. Lily realizes she may have just swapped one horrendous existence for another as she struggles to survive with the in-laws on a dilapidated farm in the bleak wildness, she feels so alone, what has Charlie landed her in and when will he be coming home.
My Overview
This is such a lovely Film to watch. I would like to say at this point the film moves very quickly through London and it's Blitz some may feel this seems a little rushed to begin with, but this film was only done on a small budget and the point of the film is about the new life for this war bride after London, in Canada things are more drawn out which really make up for it.
Wonderful Casting, all the main characters in this film show their own wounds from this war and I mean shown from what's inside their insecurities, resentments, perceived slights or damaged self-esteem and how people in life tread careful around things simmering, restraining themselves, until a sudden point of boiling over, this is so well acted from all the cast. I also loved the many little touches to this film which made it special, like passed down stories you may have heard from your own grandparents, such as huddling together on a dance floor during a Blitz as the party continues in whispers or a wedding dress made from a table cloth due to lack of money or material just the simple touches.
It's funny, happy, sad, endearing, touching, a fascinating smart and involving story, it's a film about Hope. Working this well, Screenwriter Angela Workman loosely based her script on her own mother's life. The wonderful scenery and 1940's costumes, fabulous music from this era all add to make it great. The Cast were all very strong in this, Anna Friel who I have seen growing through the years in great productions on UK TV, this preformance on film I believe is one of her best.
Extra Information - Language Used
Lily and friends are from London's East End, so the accent used by them all would be English Cockney. Only a few London English Cockney slang words are used in passing and explained in this Film.
Great Film Recommended.
Andrea Bowhill


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Winner of the Grand Prize at the Heartland Film Festival, this World War II drama stars Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies) as Lily, a vivacious girl in war-torn London. She falls in love with Charlie (Aden Young, The Starter Wife, a Canadian serviceman. Impulsively, they marry, and Lily becomes pregnant before Charlie returns to the conflict. Lily and her infant daughter join the throngs of war brides offered the chance to start new lives in Canada. Lily discovers that the family "ranch" Charlie told her about is actually a weathered, worn-out farm house located 60 miles away from the nearest big city. Charlie's mother (Fricker) and sister (Parker) are hostile to the "big city" newcomer, but Lily is determined not to let them break her spirit.

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Convicts (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)I bought this movie because I'm a Duvall fan. He is, in my mind, the American Olivier. I watched the movie once and turned around and watched it again, immediately. The setting, the interactions between Duvall's character (Old Soll) and those around him is an amazing window into a past era. Convicts has elements of being almost a stage playj. Convicts is a gem and another feather in the cap of our likely greastest living American actor.

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OscarÂ(r) winner* Robert Duvall "is terrific" (The New York Times) in this "vividly realized" (Variety) drama co-starring Lucas Haas (Witness) and James Earl Jones (Field of Dreams). "Gracefully adapted to the screen" (Los Angeles Times) by Horton Foote (Of Mice and Men) and ably directed by Peter Masterson (Blood Red), this riveting tale of an unlikely bond is "a tasty feast" (LA Weekly)!In rural Texas 1902, 13-year-old Horace (Haas) toils on a run-down plantation to buy a tombstone for the father he lost a year earlier. Soll (Duvall), the crusty old Confederate who owns the plantation, has yet to pay the boy a pennyof the money he owes him. But on Christmas Eve, as Soll becomes obsessed with his own mortality, hemakes a grand promise forcing Horace to confront his fear of death and the harsh truths of a decadent society.*1983: Actor, Tender Mercies

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The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995) Review

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(More customer reviews)"All this fuss...over what? Is it a hill, is it a mountain? Perhaps it wouldn't matter anywhere else, but this is Wales."
So what happens in this epic story about the Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain? On Sunday, 17 June 1917, cartographers/retired army officers Reginald Anson and George Garrad come to a Welsh village to measure Ffynnon Garw to determine whether it's a hill or a mountain. Their presence causes anxiety among the villagers, who are on pins and needles when they hear the British standard of a mountain defined as anything over 1,000 feet. The Britons stay at the inn of the cheeky Morgan the Goat (as opposed to Morgan the Sheep?), intending to leave after their task is completed. However, guess what height Ffynnon Garw is less than?
The villagers put things in motion with two objectives: one, to make sure their beloved Ffynnon Garw becomes a mountain, and two, to extend the Britons' stay, such as something involving two pounds of sugar and a gas tank, and a knife. The first objective forms the action of the movie, villagers moving dirt from their gardens bucket by bucket, tray by tray, through toil, sweat, and sacrifice, and placing them...guess where? And excuses for delay? The war--take note of the date listed above.
There's also a conflict between the religiously fervent Reverend Jones and Morgan, as the latter doesn't go to church and plies alcohol. When Jones asks Morgan, "Have you no shame?" Morgan flippantly pats himself down and says "No, can't think where I left it" and walks off, leaving Jones fuming.
During the movie, we see that the younger Anson is more sympathetic and humble to the villagers, while the stout and older Garrod is more logical, arrogant, and looks down on the Welsh. A typical British attitude during the period of Empire there. Anson is also taken by Betty, a maid who comes to help Morgan tend bar and also to charm the cartographers. It all goes back to Anglo-Welsh relations. The Welsh have had a rough time of it all, like the Irish. Those who survive the trenches of France return to labour only to die for coal. Sad times indeed for the Welsh.
The whole point of the movie is not just the standard height set for a mountain, but Welsh pride, of national identity. For the Welsh, all they have for monuments are mountains, no pyramids or temples. And if Ffynonn Garw isn't a mountain, then Anson might as well redraw the map and put the Welsh in England. After all, as Morgan tells Betty, "Maps are the undergarments of a country, they give shape to continents." And what's in a measurement anyway? As Morgan says, "Do we call a short man a boy or a small cat a dog? No! This is a mountain, our mountain, and if it needs to be a thousand feet, then by God let's make it a thousand feet!丒 In other words, it's all relative.
The concept of telling the village people with identical surnames by their occupation or personality is ingenious and charming, so we can tell the difference between Williams the Petroleum from Williams the Deaf. Some are more telling, as in the case of Johnny Shellshock. And there are the Thomas Twps: Thomas Twp and his brother Thomas Twp 2. As one of them says, "we've no learning than most, so people say we're twp, but we're not twp as to not know that we're twp." Right, that makes sense.
All the leads are splendid, particularly Colm Meaney as Morgan the Goat and Kenneth Griffith as the strict but passionate Reverend Jones. And Hugh Grant (Anson) has another charming leading lady, Tara Fitzgerald (Betty), who ranks up there with Andie McDowell (Four Weddings) and Martine McCutcheon (Love Actually). She really has a winning smile and saucy brogue that makes her character lovable. And darn if Ian Hart keeps popping up, be it Harry Potter, Michael Collins, and now here, as Johnny Shellshock.
A wonderful little movie with a wonderful Celtic score, as the ideas and themes that emerge make this more than a one-joke movie. And for you boyos, this was written by Hamlow_the_Writer_Who_Went_Up_A_Paragraph_But_Climbed_Down_A_Review.

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Item Name: The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain; Studio:Miramax

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The Lost Prince (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)Now that I have finally seen both episodes of The Lost Prince I can say confidently that it is one of the best Masterpiece Theater presentations in many years. As the story of Prince John, the youngest child of King George V and Queen Mary of Great Britain, it is heartbreakingly evocative of the tragedy of one child and of the loss of an entire world.
The first episode opens with Prince John at about the age of three or four. He is epileptic and probably autistic, handicaps which no one knew how to deal with effectively at the time and which were especially difficult to handle for a Royal on public display much of the time. His family is fond of him but emotionally distant, and the only real love John receives is from his nurse Lalla and his next older brother Georgie. Most of the time John is kept out of sight, though occasionally he gets to watch Royal occasions like the visit of the Russian Imperial Family to England (among the most beautiful of the scenes in this film, the Grand Duchesses and the Empress being elegant and charming) and the funeral of his grandfather Edward VII. His parents are so bound up with their royal duties and conscious of their dignity that they can't unbend enough to risk being with Johnnie too often. (With Queen Mary we are given an explanation for her apparent unfeelingness when we are shown glimpses of her own difficult and embarrassing childhood as the daughter of a very large and very undignified Princess.) Johnnie's handicaps make him refreshingly natural and spontaneous, which embarrasses his family when, for example, he repeats some unflattering comments he has overheard the Prime Minister make about the Royals. The first episode ends with the outbreak of World War I and Johnnie's removal to the countryside.
In the second episode Johnnie is safely ensconced at a farm near Sandringham with Lalla and a small retinue of servants. He rarely sees his family, who are busier with royal duties than ever. His main source of news and information is Georgie, who is a miserable cadet at the Royal Naval College. Georgie witnesses Britain's conversion to a war footing and the development of chauvinistic super-patriotic anti-German feelings. These lead to the Royal Family coming under attack for its German origins, and to the dynasty's renaming itself the House of Windsor. We also see the fate of the Romanovs after the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917. Although the British government at first agreed to accept the Romanovs as exiles, rising anti-monarchical sentiment in Britain so alarmed George V that he prevailed on his government to rescind the invitation. This led to the eventual execution of the Romanovs and lifelong remorse by the King.
During these war years Johnnie lived a quiet life, roaming the countryside and planting gardens. His parents saw him rarely and were as distant as ever. Eventually, Lalla prevailed on the King and Queen to hear Johnnie give a recital. One of the happiest parts of The Lost Prince comes when the King and Queen find themselves listening to and enjoying the company of their youngest son, gradually unbending and smiling as he plays the trumpet and kicks a football. Johnnie lived only a short time after the end of World War I, but the King and Queen carried his memory with them for the rest of their lives. By the way, it may be of interest to know that his brother Georgie, to whom Johnnie gave the courage to pursue his own artistic interests, had difficulties of his own in his twenties and thirties with drug addiction and sundry other problems, finally dying in a plane crash in 1942. This Georgie was not King George VI, the father of the present Queen. George VI's original name was Albert (Bertie) and he appears only as an extra in this film.
The Lost Prince is a beautiful production. Extreme royal aficionados will notice a few missteps (the Romanovs may have been Russian Royals, but they didn't have Russian accents the way this film portrayed them. If anything, Nicholas and Alexandra and their children had British accents!) but these are mere fumbles in the delivery of a beautiful and evocative series.

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Camille (1984) Review

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(More customer reviews)Compared to other Colin Firth movies, this movie was very flat. I love period movies, and comparing to the likes of Jane Austin, this one pales in comparison. I had higher hopes for this film so was disappointed when I finished watching it.
The character of Camille was not well formed. She gave a sub-par performance. Firth seemed stilted and robotic at times.
The story line was a good one, and the potential for it being much more fleshed out would have made it much more endearing. So, it left me feeling like I wasted 100 minutes of my day.
So, chalk it up to one not so hot purchase.
I'll loan it to my daughter, with whom I LOVE to watch movies like this, but with a forwarning not to expect too much.
I would recommend saving the $$$ and watching Pride and Prejudice again!

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North & South (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)"North & South" was released in the UK in November 2004 and in the US in July 2005. Since its first broadcast, viewers across the globe have hailed it as one of the best - if not the best - British period miniseries ever produced. It was voted BBC's "Best of 2004" in drama, actor and actress categories, among others.
Many in the US will probably confuse Elizabeth Gaskell's "North & South" to John Jake's civil war drama of the same name. While Jake's tells the story of America's north and south, Gaskell's story is rooted in Victorian England. John Thornton, a handsome, stern, passionate manufacturer from Milton represents the north. Margaret Hale, an outspoken, beautiful and spirited young woman from Helstone represents the south. When the Hales move from the idyllic village of Helstone to the bustling, industrial city of Milton, Margaret and Thornton's lives collide.
John Thornton is instantly attracted to Margaret while she is repulsed by his haughty demeanor and the way he treats his employees. She develops a disdain for the wealthy 'masters' (manufacturers) and strikes a friendship with the daughter of the local union leader, much to Thornton's dismay. As Margaret becomes better acquainted with Mr. Thornton, she gradually comes to admire him. She discovers that he is hardworking, a devoted brother and son, generous and kind to Margaret's parents, and is loyal and honorable. However, when the workers in Milton strike, the turn of events that follow drive a wedge between Margaret and Thornton and eventually threaten to pull them apart.
"North & South" is produced by the excellent BBC and the screenplay was written by Sandy Welch, who also penned the outstanding "Our Mutual Friend." Everything you would expect from a topnotch BBC production is here - locations, sets, costumes, casting, direction, cinematography. The story is an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's little known but well loved 19th century novel. Mrs. Gaskell also wrote "Wives & Daughters" which was turned to another superb miniseries starring Justine Waddell, Keeley Hawes and Francesca Annis in 1999.
I would be very remiss in writing a review for this miniseries without applauding the exemplary cast. The little known Richard Armitage has earned a throng of fans overnight because of his unforgettable portrayal of John Thornton. He has since replaced Pride & Prejudice's Colin Firth as my favorite brooding hero and infuses so much passion and charisma into his role. Daniela Denby-Ashe is wonderful and charming as Margaret Hale. Also excellent are Brendan Coyle as the gruff but good-hearted Nicholas Higgins, Sinead Cusack as John Thornton's haughty but devoted mother, Joy Joyner as the funny and superficial Fanny Thornton, Lesley Manville as Mrs. Hale and Tim Piggot-Smith as Mr. Hale.
"North & South" has since replaced 1995's "Pride & Prejudice" as my favorite miniseries. It tugs at the heart and sweeps the viewer off their feet. The relationships that develop between its main characters (notably, Thornton and Margaret; Thornton and Higgins; Margaret and Bessy Higgins) and the journey that Margaret and Thornton go through are truly unforgettable. In fact, you will wish that the ending didn't come so soon!
"North and South" went through a sad process of editing when BBC America aired it in July 2005. A full hour was cut from the miniseries to make room for commercials. Finally, with this dvd release US viewers now have a chance to see this instant classic as it was meant to be seen - with a 233 minute running time and with all the scenes intact. The dvd also includes a delightful interview with Richard Armitage, a handful of deleted scenes (including an extended 'proposal' scene), commentaries and cast biographies.
If you are an anglophile or a fan of high-quality period drama, you owe it to yourself to see "North & South." Fans of "Pride & Prejudice," "Wives & Daughters," "Middlemarch," Dickens / Austen adaptations and the like should not miss this. I have no doubt that most of you will fall in love with this miniseries as many of us have. Everyone whom I have recommended this miniseries to have at least liked it (and at most, are completely obsessed with it). This dvd is a keeper and deserves a place in any period drama fan's dvd collection.


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