Michael Angelis Movies

Tagged as a "fairy tale for adults," Nicola Scott's byzantine spiritual fantasy Fated opens in Liverpool on New Year's Eve of 1992, when Tatty (Michael Angelis), a middle-aged artist, is suddenly and unexpectedly abandoned by his much younger French paramour, Amy (Katrine De Candole). As she flees from him, she is struck dead by a passing car - the incident quietly observed by a local boy (James Harris. Torn asunder with grief, Tatty erects a statue of his beloved and mounts it in the crumbling church of St. Luke's; he then bows to the monument and begs the deceased woman to revisit him in the flesh. Exactly thirteen years later, on New Year's 2005, Tatty's life is now a wreck; the incident has reduced him to an impoverished, ragged hobo who resides in St. Luke's, still hovering over his statue. Fleeing aggressors, a local boy, Cal (Brendan Mackey), opts to evade harm by stowing away in the church for one night. He encounters Tatty, and - when the head of the statue is accidentally knocked off - Amy is resurrected. Tatty informs Amy that her only hope of staying alive resides in kissing Cal (the first man she spotted after her resurrection) before dawn. But he fails to anticipate Amy's continued rejection of himself and her inclination to fall in love with Cal. As the night progresses, events unfurl in surprising and completely unexpected ways. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A moribund nightclub on the fringes of Liverpool's sprawl is the primary setting for this frenetic, dark, and confusing comedy done in a heavy regional "dialect" by director Peter Smith. Set on New Year's Eve, the film chronicles the rivalry between elderly Irish Catholic and Protestant attendees at a party held in a gritty pub in Liverpool. Mixed in with the warring oldsters are some shady types such as Billy the Beast, the killer of an Ulster terrorist. The club's new manager has a talent for dealing with mayhem and violence, but his first challenge lies in handling the punk rock band perversely scheduled to entertain the oldsters by the disgruntled former manager. After that challenge, he is faced with a magician on the verge of a nervous breakdown and other kinds of chaos that tear through the place. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square was the original title of this British caper film. David Niven does his suave 'n' blase bit as a criminal mastermind planning a giant bank heist. Richard Jordan co-stars as an American ex-con tapped to oversee the operation. Gloria Grahame, in one of her last roles, masticates the scenery as Jordan's rude-and-crude mom. The Big Scam picked up a third title when it was released to video as The Mayfair Bank Caper. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi