Tessa Wells Movies
- 1999
- Add Journey to the Center of the Earth to QueueAdd Journey to the Center of the Earth to top of Queue
Like the 1959 theatrical feature of the same name, the two-part cable movie Journey to the Center of the Earth was loosely adapted from the Jules Verne novel (also of the same name). The first part of the TV version faithfully follows the chronology of the earlier film, with famed archeologist/explorer Professor Theodore Lytton (Treat Williams), his nephew, Jonas (Jeremy London), and adventurer-for-hire, McNiff (Hugh Keays-Byrne) embarking upon an expedition to the earth's core. The three men are following in the footsteps of Casper Hastings (Bryan Brown), who disappeared during a similar expedition several years earlier. Coming along for the ride is Casper's wife (or perhaps, widow), Alice Hastings (Tushka Bergen). Upon the foursome's arrival at the titular center of the Earth in part two, the plot goes off on a new, Apocalypse Now-inspired tangent, with the "lost" Casper Hastings reigning as a god over a subterranean (and cannibalistic) native tribe. Directed by George Miller (of The Man From Snowy River fame), Journey to the Center of the Earth made its first American TV appearance courtesy of cable's USA Network on September 14 and 15, 1999. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Treat Williams, Tushka Bergen, (more)
- 1985
- PG
New Zealand educator Sylvia Ashton-Warner (played by Eleanor David) is the subject of this informative and slightly uneven biography, based on the events in Ashton-Warner's adult life. During the 1930s Ashton-Warner moves to a remote village with her husband who has been appointed to be the headmaster in the school there. She tries to teach the Maori children but is having absolutely no luck at all -- that is especially discouraging considering that she is also fighting off culture shock and the effects of a recent emotional breakdown. Driven to find some solace in music, painting, and sculpting, she one day realizes she can use these types of creative activities as teaching tools -- and begins to develop an innovative way to reach her students. She is surprisingly successful, a fact which does not interest the all-male administrators at the school who insist she teach using traditional methods. The stand-off is severe enough that the men burn the manuscript for a new primer Ashton-Warner wrote, insisting later that this was an accident. No one seems to have come out a winner in Sylvia Ashton-Warner's battle with the provincial educators, least of all the students. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eleanor David, Nigel Terry, (more)
