Rita Davies
- 2007
Director James Killough takes the helm for this short film about a most unusual encounter in the Tate Britain. Helen is wandering the corridors of the vast museum when she begins to suspect that a creepy security guard is tracking her every move. Her pace quickening, Helen enters the Romantic Painting Gallery and befriends a young girl named Jenny. Jenny is a child artist who is waiting for her father Carson - a well-known artist himself - to return. Feeling safe with the young girl, Helen sits down. As the pair awaits the return of Jenny's father, the young girl tells Helen a surreal story involving a feral child named Cat. When Jenny's father returns from the restroom, he invites Helen to join him for a walk through the museum. Along the way, Carson and Helen bond by exchanging stories of their disastrous marriages: Carson's wife was a drug addict who suffered a fatal heroin overdose at one of his shows, and Helen's husband mysteriously vanished with the couple's young children in tow. Later, after Helen agrees to sit for a portrait by Carson, the artist and his daughter have an unsettling encounter on their way out of the museum. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alan Barnes, Catherine Walker, (more)
Dan Brown's controversial best-selling novel about a powerful secret that's been kept under wraps for thousands of years comes to the screen in this suspense thriller from director Ron Howard. The stately silence of Paris' Louvre museum is broken when one of the gallery's leading curators is found dead on the grounds, with strange symbols carved into his body and left around the spot where he died. Hoping to learn the significance of the symbols, police bring in Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), a gifted cryptographer who is also the victim's granddaughter. Needing help, Sophie calls on Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a leading symbologist from the United States. As Sophie and Robert dig deeper into the case, they discover the victim's involvement in the Priory of Sion, a secret society whose members have been privy to forbidden knowledge dating back to the birth of Christianity. In their search, Sophie and Robert happen upon evidence that could lead to the final resting place of the Holy Grail, while members of the priory and an underground Catholic society known as Opus Dei give chase, determined to prevent them from sharing their greatest secrets with the world. Also starring Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, and Alfred Molina, The Da Vinci Code was shot on location in France and the United Kingdom; the Louvre allowed the producers to film at the famous museum, but scenes taking place at Westminster Abbey had to filmed elsewhere when church officials declined permission. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, (more)
Two strong-willed women wield their influence on a shy teenaged boy in this coming-of-age comedy from the United Kingdom. Seventeen-year-old Ben (Rupert Grint) is the son of a soft-spoken vicar (Nicholas Farrell), but it's his mother, Laura (Laura Linney), who rules the household, and she has put Ben cheerfully under her thumb, keeping him busy with a variety of good-will errands for the church and numerous local charity causes. With summer vacation looming before him, Ben is looking forward to learning to drive, but Laura is more interested in spending time with one of the more charming members of the church staff than helping Ben learn how to operate the family automobile. Wanting to earn some pocket money, Ben starts looking for a part-time job and ends up working for Evie Walton (Julie Walters), an elderly and slightly eccentric actress who needs help keeping her garden in shape. Laura believes Evie isn't an especially good influence on her son, though Ben is happy to find someone who encourages his interest in poetry and the larger world (especially girls). One day, Evie announces that she needs to ride to Edinburgh, where she is supposed to give a reading as part of the city's massive music and arts festival. While Ben doesn't have his license, he volunteers to take the wheel, and soon he's confronted with various forms of decadence that his mother has frequently warned him to avoid. Driving Lessons received its North American premiere at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Julie Walters, Rupert Grint, (more)
Julian Richards' The Last Horror Movie centers on Max, a wedding photographer who, at night, with the assistance of a homeless person, makes brutal home movies of him killing a variety of innocent people. Max often addresses the camera in a chilling and flamboyant manner. His psychotic state grows even more toxic as he begins to consider how the people watching his films are reacting. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kevin Howarth, Mark Stevenson, (more)
Adapted from Charles Lambert's play, this British fantasy is a penetrating parable on homophobia and gossip about gays. Kromer, a village in rural England, dances with wolves surrounding the town. However, the "wolves" seen here are performed by barefoot actors clad in worn jeans and fur coats with furry tails. Their promiscuity, theft, wild bonfire parties, and other activities are deplored by the hypocritical back-stabbers who reside in Kromer. A new wolf on the prowl is Seth (Lee Williams), who pairs off with Gabriel (James Layton). In Kromer, a woman is being poisoned by her servants who plan to put the blame on the "sinful" wolves. Soon a vigilante hunt gets underway, projecting even more parallels with homosexuality. Former Culture Club vocalist Boy George narrates the story. Shown at the 1998 San Francisco Lesbian & Gay Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lee Williams, James Layton, (more)
From its opening multi-language titles (that sure looks like Swedish) to the closing arrest of the entire Dark Ages cast by modern-day bobbies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail helped to define "irreverence" and became an instant cult classic. This time the Pythonites savage the legend of King Arthur, juxtaposing some excellently selected exterior locations with an unending stream of anachronistic one-liners, non sequiturs, and slapstick set pieces. The Knights of the Round Table set off in search of the Holy Grail on foot, as their lackeys make clippety-clop sounds with coconut shells. A plague-ridden community, ringing with the cry of "bring out your dead," offers its hale and hearty citizens to the body piles. A wedding of convenience is attacked by Arthur's minions while the pasty-faced groom continually attempts to burst into song. The good guys are nearly thwarted by the dreaded, tree-shaped "Knights Who Say Ni!" A feisty enemy warrior, bloodily shorn of his arms and legs in the thick of battle, threatens to bite off his opponent's kneecap. A French military officer shouts such taunts as "I fart in your general direction" and "I wave my private parts at your aunties." Rabbits are a particular obsession of the writers this time around, ranging from the huge Trojan Rabbit to the "killer bunny" that decapitates one of the knights. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin collaborated on the script and assumed most of the onscreen roles, while Gilliam and Jones served as co-directors. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Graham Chapman, John Cleese, (more)
