Simon Bosanquet Movies

Shrooms director Paddy Breathnach returns to terrify horror hounds with this supernatural shocker about a dangerous loner who falls into a deep coma, and travels out of body to seek revenge against his tormentors. Kenneth Chisholm is a depraved hospital janitor with a penchant for snapping voyeuristic cell phone pictures. One night, while out at a local bar, a group of trainee medical students work up the courage to confront the sleazy shutterbug. Devastated, Kenneth suffers from an epileptic fit and falls into a deep coma. Later, when remorseful trainee Catherine Thomas attempts to revive Kenneth by administering an experimental drug cocktail designed especially for coma patients, she inadvertently sets off a horrifying series of events that will put the lives of both herself and her fellow students in grave danger. As a result, Kenneth is jolted into an out of body state that allows him to enter the bodies of his enemies and manipulate them into doing his bloody bidding. But who can you turn to for help when the person you always counted on could be possessed by a madman? When anyone can be the killer, no one can be trusted. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The often-troubled life of one of the greatest comic actors in the history of the British cinema provides the basis for this biopic. Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush) was raised by a domineering mother (Miriam Margolyes) and meek father (Peter Vaughan), and at an early age discovered he liked to hide behind the emotional curtain of playing a character. In time, Sellers put this skill to use as an actor, and discovered he had a great gift for comedy. In the late '50s, Sellers rose to fame on the wildly popular radio series The Goon Show alongside Spike Milligan (Edward Tudor Pole) and Harry Secombe (Steve Pemberton), but as his success on radio gave way to stardom on the big screen, Sellers' ego began to get the better of him. While working on a film with Sophia Loren (Sonia Aquino), Sellers fell in love with the great Italian beauty, and eventually left his wife Anne (Emily Watson) to pursue her; when it became clear that Loren wanted nothing to do with him, Sellers fell into an affair with her stand-in instead. Professionally, Sellers career hits a new high when he agrees to take a role in a picture being directed by American filmmaker Blake Edwards (John Lithgow) called The Pink Panther, and personally he finds a new love with the beautiful Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron). But Sellers' mood swings eventually put paid to their marriage, and while he finds commercial success as a funnyman onscreen, he achieves little in the way of happiness or respect. Produced for the American premium cable service HBO, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers was screened in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One man takes on the Irish family law system and the Catholic Church in a bid to be reunited with his children in this drama, based on a true story. In 1953, Desmond Doyle (Pierce Brosnan) was a house painter and decorator who, despite a strong work ethic, had a hard time holding on to steady work. Desmond's wife had grown tired of her marriage and her husband's financial problems, and one day walked away from her home, leaving Desmond to raise their three children on his own. While Desmond struggles to keep body and soul together for his children, his sporadic employment eventually attracts the attention of the law, and a court order sends his two sons and young daughter to separate Catholic orphanages until Desmond can prove he's capable of properly supporting them. However, Desmond discovers merely getting work is not enough to bring his children back to him, and when he learns that his daughter, Evelyn (Sophie Vavasseur), is having a rough time of it at the hands of several stern nuns, he becomes determined to win their custody in a court of law. Through Bernadette (Julianna Margulies), a barmaid who has caught his eye, Desmond meets Michael Beattie (Stephen Rea), a lawyer and Bernadette's brother. While Michael doesn't believe Desmond's case can be won in an Irish court, his partner Nick Barron (Aidan Quinn), an expatriate American who lost custody of his own children in a divorce proceeding, is eager to help, and they agree to take the case. However, they both realize they're fighting an uphill battle, and so they persuade Thomas Connolly (Alan Bates), a former football star who became one of Ireland's most respected barristers, to lend his knowledge and prestige to the case. Leading man Bronson also served a co-producer for Evelyn; Bruce Beresford directed, who previously collaborated with Pierce Brosnan on Mister Johnson. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Another member of the Fiennes family leaves a mark in the film business, as Martha Fiennes makes her big-screen directorial debut with a screen adaptation of the verse novel by Aleksander Pushkin, with her big brother Ralph Fiennes in the leading role. Onegin (Fiennes) is a blase man who has grown weary of the social whirl of his life in St. Petersburg in the 1820s. Onegin's wealthy uncle has recently passed on, bequeathing him a large estate in the country, where the financially embarrassed Onegin has now chosen to live. Onegin makes fast friends with his neighbor Lensky (Toby Stephens), who introduces Onegin to his fiancée Olga (Lena Headley). Olga in turn introduces him to her mother (Harriet Walker) and her younger sister, Tatyana (Liv Tyler). Onegin finds Tatyana interesting, and she is strongly infatuated with him, finding him coolly attractive and enjoying his straightforward way of expressing himself. Tatyana makes her feelings known to Onegin in a love letter, but he calmly rejects her advances. Lensky senses Tatyana's attraction to Onegin and talks to him about her; Lensky is shocked when Onegin says he regards her as unintelligent, and in a moment of anger Lensky challenges his friend to a duel. Neither man wants to kill the other, but both are too stubborn to back down, and Onegin ends up shooting Lensky, forcing him to flee to parts unknown. Six years later, a older and more humble Onegin re-encounters the married Tatyana and begs her for a second chance. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This third feature film version of Joseph Conrad's tragic romantic drama (the best of which remains John Cromwell's 1940 adaptation) is the one that stick's closest to the original story of a reclusive, hard-hearted fellow living on a private island in the Dutch East Indies who must protect his home, and the woman he comes to love, from two brutish villains. The story is told by a sea captain and begins at a turn-of-the century hotel in the port town of Surabaya where the Dutch entrepreneurs come to drink and wind down while listening to an all-female orchestra led by creepy conductor Sam Giancomo (Simon Callow). The joint is owned by an unpleasant, bigoted German named Schomberg (Jean Yanne) who constantly pesters the conductor to sell him Alma (Irene Jacob), the prettiest girl in the band. Eventually Sam relents, causing the frightened Alma to beseech taciturn patron Axel Heyst (Willem Dafoe) to help her escape. At first Axel refuses, but then has a change of heart and takes her with him to his lonely island where she will live with himself and his valet Wang (Ho Yi). Initially, Axel wants nothing to do with Alma, but things change and they become lovers. Meanwhile, the vengeful Schomberg plots revenge. He gets a chance to enact it with the arrival of the villainous Mr. Jones (Sam Neill) and his henchmen who turn Schomberg's bar into a gambling house. Seeing that Jones is ruthless and avaricious, Schomberg casually mentions that there is an untapped fortune lying in an abandoned mine located on Axel's island. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Splitting Heirs is a dull mistaken identity comedy about a British Duke (Eric Idle) who is switched at birth when his parents accidentally left him behind in a restaurant, picking up the wrong baby by mistake. Idle is raised by Pakistanis and when he discovers his true identity, he begins plotting to kill the American (Rick Moranis) who is the unwitting imposter. His plans go awry, and Idle hires a lawyer (John Cleese) to help him regain his title. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Peter Kosminksy directed this faithful adaptation of the Emily Bronte classic. Ralph Fiennes has the role of Heathcliff, a wanderer adopted by the father of Cathy (Juliette Binoche), "a wild slip of a girl." Heathcliffe is looked down upon by his stepbrothers and becomes a servant. He is further crushed when Cathy, the love of his life, marries another man -- since to marry a servant would be the ultimate in humiliation for her. Heathcliffe disappears for a number a years but then returns, revenge and hatred for Cathy's family the only thing on his mind. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Shirley MacLaine is Madame Sousatzka, an aging piano instructor of Russian extraction. Entrenched in a dilapidated London rooming house, the Madame gives lessons only to the most gifted. She does not stop at mere instruction; Sousatzka insists that her pupils conduct their lives in the same genteel, cultured manner in which she was raised. Her prize student at the moment is an East Indian teenage boy (Navin Chowdhry), who forms a strong and loving bond with the old woman. Director John Schlesinger occasionally cuts away from the Madame and her pupil to allow comic space for the other tenants in Ashcroft's building, including an erstwhile songstress (Twiggy) and a gay osteopath (Geoffrey Baydlon). Navim Chowdhry's mother is played by Shabana Azmi, an important star of Indian films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A pair of British lads, one gay and one socialist, chafe at the restrictions of boarding school life in this period piece, which was adapted from Julian Mitchell's novel and play of the same name and loosely based on the Burgess-Maclean spy scandal of the 1950s. In the 1930s, upper-class scions Tommy Judd (Colin Firth) and Guy Bennett (Rupert Everett) are both nearing the end of their careers at an unnamed public school that bears a striking resemblance to Eton. Tommy, a Marxist intellectual, refuses to participate actively in the school's rigid social hierarchy. But Guy, when not mooning after pretty boys, angles for a position next term as one of the "gods," or master prefects, of his house. When a faculty member stumbles onto the homosexual fumblings of a pair of students, one boy commits suicide and a scandal erupts. The administration and senior students do their best to ensure nothing of this sort ever sullies their reputation again. Considering that homosexual experimentation is rampant and that Guy has slept with most of the prefects in his house, the strict new rules leave a bad taste in his mouth. They also put a damper on his Wildean lifestyle, especially after he falls hopelessly in love with James Harcourt (Cary Elwes), a dreamy boy from one of the other houses. Things come to a head when autocratic prefect Fowler (Tristan Oliver) intercepts a letter from Guy to James and sentences Guy to a savage beating. By film's end, Guy's complicity in the power games of the British class system has been challenged, and his friend Tommy's communist dogma has made a lasting impression; a framing device portrays Guy as an elderly former spy living in exile in Soviet Moscow. Another Country was shot at Cambridge, Oxford, and Althorp Hall (Princess Diana's childhood home) after the producers were denied permission to shoot at Eton. Everett and Firth both appeared in the original London theater production alongside Kenneth Branagh and Daniel Day-Lewis; on-stage, it was actually Firth who played Guy. For a more factual account of the Burgess-Maclean affair, see the TV movie An Englishman Abroad. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide