Amy Shindler Movies
Jill Murphy's children's story The Worst Witch is given satisfactory treatment in this amiable film fantasy. The scene is a school for witches, where the head sorceresses offer a liberal black-arts curriculum. Problems occur when one of the students turns out to be too good for her own good. And, as everybody knows, the best people make the worst witches. Veterans Diana Rigg and Charlotte Rae generously share screen time with such engaging comparative newcomers as Fairuza Balk. The 70-minute Worst Witch is ideal TV fare for the Halloween season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
On August 8, 1963, the Royal Mail train, on its nighttime run from London to Glasgow, was robbed by 15 men who got away with 2.6 million pounds (today the equivalent of $35 million). Buster tells the story of one of the junior robbers, Buster Edwards (played by pop singer Phil Collins), in a crime that came to be known as the Great Train Robbery. The film details the planning of the famous heist, but its main concern is Buster's relationship with his family and his devotion to his wife June (Julie Walters). The Edwards are like a British Kramden family, trying to make ends meet from day-to-day in their rental apartment, but instead of a bus driver, Buster is a two-bit thief who has the fine luck of hardly ever getting caught. After the Royal mail train robbery, the heat intensifies, since the Conservative Government, already smarting from the Profumo scandal, latches onto the train robbery as a means to deflect attention from the scandal by bringing the train robbers quickly to justice. Buster and June go into hiding and have a series of close calls before finally escaping to Mexico. Finally in paradise, the Edwards find their money quickly being eaten up and discover that they cannot adapt to the Mexico milieu. June, for her part, is homesick, and Buster, always ready to keep her happy, makes the grand gesture -- to return to England and turn himself in to the police. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Phil Collins, Julie Walters, (more)
Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, in director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of Mariane's memoir recounting the abduction and murder of her husband (played in the film by Dan Futterman) by Pakistani militants. It was on January 23, 2002, that Mariane Pearl's life took a grim and unanticipated turn that no one could have seen coming. The South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl, was in Pakistan with his pregnant wife, Mariane, when he set out to conduct one last interview for an upcoming article; the pair were due to fly back home to the U.S. shortly thereafter. By all accounts, it was the same type of interview he had conducted a hundred times before, and though the only concern that Daniel had voiced beforehand was that he might be a bit late for dinner, it would soon become obvious that something had gone horribly awry. Later, in an attempt to rise above the seething vengeance and cycle of violence that the post-9/11 world has fallen into and familiarize her newborn son with the father he will never know, Mariane penned A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl. The remarkable true story behind the murder that shook the entire world, Mariane's deeply personal novel is adapted for the screen by the BAFTA award-winning director of The Road to Guantanamo. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, (more)
