John Michie Movies
- 2002
Based on the best-selling novel by Irish comedian Spike Milligan, Puckoon is a political satire about a town cut in half by the partitioning of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in 1924. The action takes place in a town known as Puckoon where an ordinary fellow named Dan Madigan wakes up one day to find barbed-wire fences running right through his neighbors' houses. All at once, Madigan's friends begin altering their personalities to suit the side of the fence they've found themselves on. So it's up to Madigan, the last sane man in town, to restore order. Originally written in 1963, Puckoon is considered the forerunner of anti-humor comedy which became the staple of shows like Monty Python and Saturday Night Live. ~ Connor McMadden, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Hughes, Elliott Gould, (more)
The story of George Adamson, whose work helped inspire the book and subsequent film Born Free, is continued in the fact-based drama To Walk With Lions. In Kenya in the late 1980's, Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) is a young man from London who has a job as a driver with a safari guide company. However, Tony's commitment is less to exploring the wilds than in picking up women (especially wealthy tourists), so when he's fired, Tony just wants to get another job fast to get airfare home. The first position he finds is assisting George Adamson (Richard Harris), who with his bother Terence (Ian Bannen) helps "rehabilitate" lions from zoos and returns them to the wild. George is more devoted to his animals than to most people, but a bond of respect and understanding develops between George and Tony, and Tony develops a similar rapport with the lions. Tony also develops a different sort of attachment to Lucy (Kerry Fox), a British anthropologist studying indigenous tribes in Kenya. However, the tone shifts when George's ex-wife, Joy (Honor Blackman) arrives for a visit. George and Joy did not separate on cordial terms, and their meeting is brief and contentious (while Joy made a tidy sum from the book Born Free, George never received any of the money for his continuing work with the lions). Shortly after her departure, Joy is killed by one of her servants. While To Walk With Lions is in several respects critical of the wildlife policies of the Kenyan government, the film was financed in part by Kenyans and was filmed in Kenya with the support and cooperation of state authorities. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Harris, John Michie, (more)
- 1998
The ninth feature-length episode in the British mystery series Dalziel and Pascoe, "Child's Play" is set, as usual, in Yorkshire, the home and workplace of weary, aging police detective Andy Dalziel (Warren Clarke) and his young, eager-beaver partner, Peter Pascoe (Colin Buchanan). The case at hand involves a middle-aged man who shows up uninvited at the funeral of a much-hated local dowager, claiming to be the dead woman's long-lost son (lost for fifty years, in fact) -- and the sole heir to her fortune. Meanwhile, Dalziel and Pascoe's colleague Sgt. Wield (David Royle),a closeted homosexual who keeps his preferences secret for fear of being dismissed, is plagued by a blackmailer. These two plot streams converge into one when murder rears its ugly head. Originally telecast as single, two-hour special in the U.K., Dalziel and Pascoe: Child's Play made its American debut as a two-part miniseres, shown on November 6 and 13, 1998, by the A&E cable network. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1997
A priest deals with the constant struggle between his spiritual goals, his earthly temptations, and his personal ideals in this British drama. Eddie Dawson (John Michie) and Bobby Winterman (Ben Taylor) are best friends attending a Catholic school in North Yorkshire in the mid-1950s. Eddie feels a calling to God as he grows older and decides to study for the priesthood, but his unorthodox ideas about church policies mark him as a rebel early on; he also finds himself uncomfortably attracted to a fellow seminarian in his all-male environment. When Eddie is given a parish to tend in a working class village, he sparks a scandal by honoring the request of an unwed mother to baptize her child. Transferred to a more open-minded congregation in London, Eddie finds his vow of celibacy sorely tempted by the sexy teenage daughter of one of his churchgoers, and he angers his superiors when he questions church doctrine in a controversial magazine article. The furor brings Bobby back into Eddie's life when the former, now a journalist, decides to write a story about his old friend. Monk Dawson was the debut feature for producer/director Tom Waller. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1988
- PG13
Set in 1940s England, Distant Voices/Still Lives is a compassionate look at a radically dysfunctional family. The son and his mother must endure the casual and overt cruelties of the bull-necked father. The ongoing abuse takes its toll in the form of failed marriages and misguided attempts at seeking security outside the family unit. As was the case with his earlier short subject trilogy (The Children, Madonna and Child, Death and Transfiguration), director Terence Davies based much of the material on his own life, combining rheumy-eyed cynicism with soft-edged nostalgia (the musical track, drawn from popular wartime songs, is particularly evocative). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite, (more)
