Paul Laverty Movies

A man trying to put his life back on track gets some advice from an unexpected benefactor in this comedy-drama from acclaimed British director Ken Loach. Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is a postman living in Manchester whose life has been slowly going off the rails ever since his wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop) walked out on him. Eric has just been released from the hospital after an auto accident, and comes home to a house that's a mess and two teenage sons, Ryan (Gerard Kearns) and Jess (Stefan Gumbs), who regard their dad as an annoyance rather than an authority figure. Eric's oldest child, a grown daughter named Sam (Lucy-Jo Hudson), loves him but can't get her mother or brothers to show him any respect. And his friends from work don't know what to do for him, except allow him to talk about football and his favorite team, Manchester United. One night, Eric is home alone, smoking some weed, and to his amazement he's visited by an apparition of Eric Cantona, the French footballer who was a star for Manchester United in the 1990s until he retired and dropped out of sight. Cantona's ghost has come to give Eric a pep talk and offer him some advice on how to win Lily back, and as Eric tries to convince his wife to give him another chance, Cantona periodically appears to coach him in the ways of romance. Looking For Eric was an official selection at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two brothers are caught on differing sides of the battle for Irish freedom in this politically minded historical drama from veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach. It's 1920, and Damien O'Donovan (Cillian Murphy) has recently graduated from medical school. Damien plans to leave the small village in Ireland where he was born to take a job in London, much to the annoyance of his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney), who is an Irish loyalist and wants to see the British stripped of their rule of his land. While visiting Peggy (Mary Riordan), a longtime friend of the family, Damien and Teddy witness a visit by "Black and Tans," British soldiers who supposedly keep the peace in Ireland; the soldiers turn violent and murder Michaeil (Lawrence Barry), Peggy's grandson, when they discover he only speaks Gaelic. Damien is radicalized by the event, and with Teddy joins the local chapter of the Irish Republican Army, who use violence to drive British troops out of the country. While the IRA is a poor and ill-equipped fighting force, their willingness to give their lives for their cause is taken very seriously by the British, who step up their reprisals against the locals; the Black and Tans even begin directing their violence and torture against women and children, including Damien's girlfriend, Sinead (Orla Fitzgerald). In 1921, Britain attempts to end the violence in Ireland by creating the Irish Free State, a compromise government which will give the Irish greater autonomy while Great Britain still retains final political control of the nation. Teddy sees this as a victory and believes it's an important first step to a truly free Ireland, but Damien sees the IRA's goal as nothing short of complete independence, and the brothers and allies soon become rivals in a battle neither side can win. The Wind That Shakes the Barley received the Golden Palm award as Best Picture at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In the aftermath of the tragedies on September 11, 2001, the French film company Studio Canal called upon a group of filmmakers, representing various regions of the world, to address the scope of the situation in however broad or intimate a context as they saw fit. The one guideline they were given was that no one film could exceed 11 minutes, nine seconds, and one frame. The resulting omnibus film, 11'09"01, showed at festivals around the world the following year and garnered a theatrical release in 2003. Each filmmaker's entry takes a different approach: French director Claude Lelouch tells the tale of a World Trade Center tour guide who is on the verge of a breakup with his deaf girlfriend when the terrorist attacks hit; similarly, Hollywood actor-director Sean Penn chronicles the lonely existence of an old man living not far from the Twin Towers. Egyptian director Youssef Chahine and British social realist filmmaker Ken Loach created the most controversy with their entries, which, respectively, address the points-of-view of a suicide bomber and of a Chilean who recalls the brutal coup funded by the United States in his country on September 11, 1973. Alejandro González Iñárritu's piece is the most abstract, taking images from television on the day of the attacks and cutting them with selected bursts of sound. Samira Makhmalbaf, Danis Tanovic, and Idrissa Ouedraogo all tell small-scale stories of the effects of the attacks on tiny villages in Iran, Serbia, and Burkina Faso, respectively. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

Actor Peter Mullan won the 1998 Cannes Film Festival "Best Actor" award with this film, directed by Ken Loach (Carla's Song, Ladybird, Ladybird). The drama is set in Possilpark, one of Glasgow's poorest neighborhoods, a rough section where half the population is out of work. Unemployed reformed alcoholic Joe Kavanagh (Mullan) does odd jobs and manages a stumbling soccer team. One of the players is Liam (David McKay), in debt to hood McGowan (David Hayman). Liam and junkie Sabine (Annemarie Kennedy) are raising a small son. After Joe meets social worker Sarah (Louise Goodall), he and his pal Shanks show up to help in the wallpapering of Sarah's apartment. This job creates a problem for Joe with the local unemployment office, until Sarah steps in to cover. It's the beginning of a romance, and Joe and Sarah make an effort to help Liam and Sarah when they are threatened by the loan sharks. Mullan commented, "The drug problem in that place is so serious that people are passive. They are corralled in a sort of dog-eat-dog environment where humans meet to laugh and thrive but have no hope of getting out." Scripted by former lawyer Paul Laverty, the film is inspired by the first half of Loach's Carla's Song. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide