Steven Waddington Movies

Two years before director Derek Jarman died of AIDS, he directed this extremely ambitious variation on Christopher Marlowe's 16th-century play. While Marlowe is the root of this film, Jarman has taken a great deal of leeway with the manner of presentation. The story revolves around King Edward's open homosexuality, which eventually led to his murder and succession. Instead of lush historical settings, the film uses bare walls and dirt floors and puts the cast into smart suits. This "staginess" works to the advantage of Jarman's design, and he takes every opportunity to anachronize. (For example, Annie Lennox shows up to provide a lovely rendition of Cole Porter's "Every Time We Say Goodbye".) A striking film, and a high point of Jarman's career. ~ John Voorhees, Rovi

Don't Get Me Started a combined German and British production directed and written by Arthur Ellis, is a not very funny, not particularly mysterious comic film noir. Jack Lane (Trevor Eve) wants to quit his job as mob hitman and start a new life working as an insurance salesman. Jack, who is mentally disturbed, kills a co-worker and tries to hide the crime. Insurance investigator Jerry Hoff (Steven Waddington) is brought into the case to find out the truth. The direction by Arthur Ellis in uninspired, and he gets only mediocre performances from his cast of stock characters from previous noir films. There is nothing new here, and the attempts at black humor are labored and not very convincing on any level. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

Carrington is the true story of the peculiar love affair between two nonconformists in Victorian England: painter Dora Carrington (Emma Thompson) and author Lytton Strachey (Jonathan Pryce). Dora is a young English artist who is part of the Bloomsbury Group, an assemblage of British writers, painters, and eccentrics that includes the likes of Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, when she meets Strachey. A confirmed homosexual before meeting Carrington, Strachey inquires who the "ravishing boy" is and discovers that it's a woman. Shocked to discover this, he finds himself captivated by her, and they begin an unusual 17-year love affair/friendship. Strachey (most famous for the groundbreaking book Eminent Victorians) and Dora eventually move in together and have a series of offbeat sexual experiences with other members of the group and sometimes even with the same man; at one juncture, Dora even marries another man. Yet their relationship endures until Strachey's death years later. Pryce was honored as Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

A century after the Normans conquer England, evil Prince John (Ralph Brown) seizes control of the realm in the absence of the rightful ruler, his brother Richard the Lion-Hearted (Rory Edwards), who has been crusading in the Holy Land. John means to replace Richard as king. John, a Norman, governs with cruelty and force of arms, and the Saxon natives despise him. Siding with John are fearsome warrior priests known as Templars. All seems lost for the Saxons. Then the Saxon hero Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades in disguise. Not far behind is Richard. Meanwhile, Ivanhoe's father, Cedric (James Cosmo), a Saxon lord who has disowned his son in the mistaken belief that he has betrayed Richard, betroths his beautiful ward, Rowena (Victoria Smurfit), Ivanhoe's beloved, to Saxon lord Athelstane (Chris Walker). If right is to prevail, the Saxons must unseat John, and Ivanhoe must restore his good name and win Rowena. John decides to sponsor a tournament between his Templar champions and Saxon knights. On the first day of the tournament, the disguised Ivanhoe heartens the Saxons by defeating the best of the Templars in a jousting match. On the second day, during sword-to-sword combat, he turns apparent defeat into victory with the help of a mysterious Black Knight (Rory Edwards). Ivanhoe suffers a wound, however, and Rebecca (Susan Lynch), a Jew, nurses him back to health. Ivanhoe had saved the life of her father, Isaac. The Templars capture Ivanhoe and other Saxons, as well as Rebecca and her father, and hold them in a castle. Then, Saxon men-at-arms led by Robin Hood (Aden Gillett) and the Black Knight storm the castle and free the prisoners. However, a Templar knight rides off with Rebecca, and his superior condemns her as a witch and sentences her to be burned at the stake. The film builds to its climax as Ivanhoe rides to save Rebecca, and viewers wonder about the ultimate fate of John, the identity of the Black Knight, and the future course of English history. ~ Mike Cummings, Rovi

Carl Schenkel directed this Tarzan film "based on the stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs." In England of 1913, Tarzan (Casper Van Dien) is due to marry Jane (Jane March), but he suddenly chooses to return to the jungle to prevent villainous explorer Nigel Ravens (Steve Waddington) from burning and killing in his quest for the lost city of Opar. Jane's pursuit of the vine-swinging Lord of the Apes forces her to confront snakes and other jungle perils. The film's inane dialogue is heard amid magnificent South African locations. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

British television comic Steve Coogan made his first bid for a big-screen career in this comedy, in which he plays Simon Garden, a singularly inept parole officer who has not had terribly good luck with his clients -- after many years on the job, only three of the former prisoners he's been looking after have avoided returning to a life of crime. Garden is transferred from his post in Blackpool to a new assignment in Manchester, and it isn't long before he finds himself in hot water. Garden happened to be on hand when Burton (Stephen Dellane), a crooked cop, murdered a drug dealer with whom he had been involved in a cocaine deal. Realizing he's in trouble, Burton rearranges the evidence so that Garden looks like the killer. A surveillance camera captured Burton's crime on tape, and now Garden must get his hands on the tape in order to clear his name. However, Burton has cleverly stashed the tape in a top security bank vault to keep it away from Garden, so the parole officer must stage a break-in to collect the evidence -- and he chooses as his accomplices George (Om Puri), Jeff (Steven Waddington), and Colin (Ben Miller), the three parolees who've stayed out of trouble until now. The Parole Officer also features Emma Williams as a former associate of Burton's who ends up helping out Garden, and cameos from Omar Sharif and Jenny Agutter. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

ER regular Alex Kingston stars as the title character in this British-produced biopic of first century A.D. "warrior queen" Boudica. After the death of her husband, King Prasutagus (Steven Waddington), the feisty Boudica becomes the leader of the Iceni, a Celtic tribe living in East Anglia. Though Boudica and her followers put up a valiant defense, their homeland is overrun by the Roman legions of the mad emperor Nero (Andrew Lee Potts), who has devised a hellish scheme to put the "ginger bitch" in her place. Beaten and bound by the conquering soldiers, Boudica is forced to watch as her daughters are brutally raped. Assuming that the Iceni queen has been humbled and no longer poses a threat to the Empire, Nero spares her life -- which turns out to be one of the emperor's biggest errors in judgment, as the vengeful Boudica and her army set about to prove in bloodthirsty fashion that she is, to paraphrase a much-later British monarch, a queen with "the heart and stomach of a king." In America, Warrior Queen proved to be an uncharacteristically violent Masterpiece Theatre offering when it was broadcast over PBS in the fall of 2003. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Tudors presents the rarely dramatized, tumultuous early years of King Henry VIII's nearly 40 year, omnipotent reign (1509-1547). In addition to his famous female consorts and 20+ year marriage to Catherine of Aragon to the infamous dalliance with Anne Boleyn, the series delves in to Henry's most notable political relationship and the deconstruction of the Roman Catholic Church in England.