Patrick Connor Movies

Brazil constitutes Terry Gilliam's enormously ambitious follow-up to his 1981 Time Bandits. It also represents the second installment in a trilogy of Gilliam films on imagination versus reality, that began with Bandits and ended in 1989 with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. To create this wild, visually audacious satire, Gilliam combines dystopian elements from Orwell, Huxley and Kafka (plus a central character who mirrors Walter Mitty) with his own trademark, Monty Python-esque, jet black British humor and his gift for extraordinary visual invention. The results are thoroughly unprecedented in the cinema.

Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry, a civil servant who chooses to blind himself to the decaying, drone-like world around him. It's a world marred by oppressive automatization and towering bureaucracy, and populated by tyrannical guards who strongarm lawbreakers. And Lowry is stuck in the middle of this nightmare. Whenever real life becomes too oppressive, Sam fantasizes (to the tune of Ary Baroso's 1930s hit "Brazil") about sailing through the clouds as a winged superhero, and rescuing beautiful Jill Layton (Kim Greist) from a giant, Samurai warrior. The omnipresent computer that controls everything in the "real" world malfunctions, causing an innocent citizen to be arrested and tortured to death. When Sam routinely investigates the error, he meets - and pursues Jill , literally the girl of his dreams. But in real life, she's a tough-as-nails truck driver who initially wants nothing to do with him. It turns out that she is suspected of underground activities, in connection with a terrorist network wanted for bombing public places. The price Sam pays for his association with her is a close encounter with the man in charge of torturing troublesome citizens (Michael Palin). He is rescued - at the last minute - by maintenance man Harry Tuttle (Robert de Niro) who moonlights as a terrorist, but that only represents the beginning of his plight, for now the "system" is onto him.

Gilliam ran into enormous problems with Brazil. Universal - which produced the picture - originally slated it for release in 1984, but the studio - intimidated by the film's whopping length of 142 minutes - demanded that Gilliam trim the film to bring it in under two hours and alter the pessimistic ending. Gilliam refused; Universal shelved the picture for a year. In response, the director took out a full page ad in Variety asking studio president Sid Sheinberg when the film would be released. Sensing tremendous pressure, Universal bowed to Gilliam's insistence on fewer cuts but still demanded a happy ending. Gilliam trimmed only eleven minutes and altered the conclusion just slightly (instead of cutting to black, it fades into puffy white clouds on a blue sky, with a reprise of the title tune). It was thus released in early 1985 at 131 minutes, and of course became a seminal work; many critics regarded it at the time as the best film of the eighties. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Singleton (Ian Holm) is a determined British farmer with a gaggle of holiday geese ready for market. It should be a simple task for Singleton to get his honking cargo to town, but it isn't. For starters, his drivers have gone on strike, so Singleton must take the geese himself. The hundred-mile trek to market is fraught with peril and hilarity, and by the time Singleton is halfway there, he's become a national hero. A fond hark back to the Ealing Studios comedies of yore, Singleton's Pluck is a captivating paean to the unquenchability of the human spirit, expertly realized by Ian Holm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having already been seen spying for the Nazis in 1979's The Eagle Has Landed, Donald Sutherland once more infiltrates wartime England on behalf of Der Fuhrer in Eye of the Needle. Willing to kill even the most innocent of bystanders to complete his task, Sutherland manages to remain in Britain until the eve of D-Day in 1944. Discovering that the invasion is to take place on Normandy, Sutherland scurries to rendezvous with a U-boat off the treacherous Isle of Storms. His mission is thwarted by Kate Nelligan, the frustrated wife of paralyzed RAF commander Christopher Cazenove. Though having fallen in love with Sutherland, Nelligan nonetheless prepares to turn the man in when he kills her husband. Tension mounts in the closing scene as Sutherland races against time to (a) make contact with the U-boat and (b) stop Nelligan before she blows the whistle on him. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

British glam rock superstars Slade made their collective acting debut in this downbeat drama about a pop group's struggles with success. In the late '60s, Barry (Dave Hill), Paul (Jim Lea), and Charlie (Don Powell) are musicians who are barely making a living playing pub dates, weddings, and socials backing up egocentric vocalist Jack Daniels (Alan Lake). One night, the boys find themselves opening for a ghoulish show band called The Undertakers, and a prank played on their lead vocalist, Stoker (Noddy Holder), backfires and leads to a car chase which lands both groups in jail for the night. After a long night of thinking, Barry, Paul, and Charlie decide that they have no future with Daniels, and bring new pal Stoker aboard as their singer. Calling themselves Iron Rod, the new quartet clicks musically, but manager Ron Harding (Johnny Shannon) doesn't care for their new style and stops booking the group. Robert Seymour (Tom Conti), a marketing man from a wealthy family who thinks there's quick money in pop music, enters the picture and informs the band that he can make them major stars. Wary of Seymour but eager for success, the group signs a new management deal, and after Seymour changes their name to Flame and gives them an image makeover, the band scores a hit record and is soon playing a series of sold-out shows. But as fame beckons, tensions rise between the musicians and is not at all helped when Harding reenters the picture. Slade members Jim Lea and Noddy Holder wrote a set of original songs for the film, two of which ("Far Far Away" and "How Does It Feel") became hit singles in the U.K. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The Strange Affair is a fragmentary "'60s" interpretation of a straightforward Bernard Toms novel. Michael York plays a rookie London policeman, appalled at the corruption surrounding him. He does not find comfort in the fact that his own superior (Jeremy Kemp) is just as crooked as the crooks. Susan George is the obligatory "mod" girl with whom York conducts a brief affair. Like many British films of its period, it seems more concerned with inducing pop-art headaches than simply telling its story. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this spooky film, three American exchange students visit an English castle purported to be haunted. The lads want to see if the local legend is true. At sundown the boys are accosted by a spirit who leaps down from a portrait. He asks the lads if they will help a second ghost locate his missing head. They agree to help, but they find themselves plagued by a third spirit. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The original 1958 BBC television production of the last of Nigel Kneale's classic Quatermass scripts -- which is best known in association with the 1967 Hammer Films adaptation by Roy Ward Baker -- runs circles around the feature-film version. As with the other Quatermass serials, Kneale's original script goes a lot deeper into meanings, motivations, and consequences of the events depicted, as well as characterization and plot developments. That's understandable, as the producers had six episodes running over 30 minutes each in which to work, instead of the 98-minute running time of the movie. The result is a storyline in which the mystery is developed as much as the horror and science-fiction elements, and is worthy of Sherlock Holmes, one might add. An excavation for a London subway turns up mysterious skeletons, that are almost -- but not quite -- human. An investigation by Dr. Roney (Cec Linder), a paleontologist, reveals that these creatures had abnormally large brain cavities, much larger than was the norm for any known prehistoric proto-human species. There are other specimens as well, large insect-like creatures, and all were clustered around what seems to be a spacecraft buried at the same time as these skeletons, possibly as long as five million years. The unearthing of the space vehicle brings into the case England's greatest rocket expert, Professor Benard Quatermass (Andre Morell), who comes to believe from the evidence that the vehicle is from Mars, as were the insect-like beings. Even as Quatermass and Roney continue to investigate, they run up against resistance from government officials eager to avoid a panic, and from Quatermass' new superior, Colonel Breen (Anthony Bushell), a weapons expert who doesn't trust intellectuals or idealistic scientists, and wants to believe that the spaceship was part of a World War II Nazi hoax intended to raise hysteria among the public. Meanwhile, hysteria seems called for, as strange and potentially deadly manifestations of telekinetic power and other paranormal phenomenon start to overtake workers at the site of the excavation. Quatermass and Roney are convinced that some potentially catastrophic forces are being tampered with, but no one in the government will listen to them until it is too late, and all hell, literally, starts to break loose. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Opening with elaborate preparations for the Queen of England's birthday, The Queen's Guards introduces the audience via voiceover to John Fellowes, a young captain overseeing the participation of the Grenadier Guards in the celebratory parade. A series of flashbacks follow, which fill the viewer in on John's difficult past: a crippled father who is a former Guardsman himself and maintains an obsessive interest with the Guards; a dead brother (also a Guardsman) to whom John is constantly (and unfavorably) compared by his father; and difficulties encountered during his military training when he learns his brother died a coward and caused the death or injury of many of his colleagues (including the father of a girl in whom John has a romantic interest.) Eventually, John is placed in charge of a military operation that has many parallels to the ill-fated one led by his brother, putting him in the position to either repeat his brother's mistakes or atone for them and thereby restore the family's honor. The film mixes shot of actors portraying Guards with footage of actual Guardsmen and soldiers on parade and in action, and also includes some location shots of Battersea Bridge and the Prospect of Whitby. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide