Dicken Ashworth Movies

Eccentric inventor Wallace (voice of Peter Sallis) and his faithful if often perplexed dog Gromit are back in their first feature-length adventure from animator Nick Park. Wallace and Gromit have launched a new business venture just in time for a major gardening competition in their neighborhood of West Wallaby. "Anti-Pesto" is a humane pest-relocation service in which Wallace and Gromit capture rabbits and other critters who have been eating the produce from local gardens and give them new homes somewhere else. Business has been going well, and when the woman hosting the garden show, Lady Tottington (voice of Helena Bonham Carter), discovers a massive tribe of rabbits has been making a mess of her garden, she calls in Wallace and Gromit to move the bunnies elsewhere. Wallace is quite taken with Lady Tottington, but he's not the only one -- Victor Quartermaine (voice of Ralph Fiennes) is a slick but arrogant upper-class type who wants to win Lady Tottington's hand (and fortune) and is convinced he can do a better job capturing the rabbits than Wallace. However, Wallace's attempts to brainwash the rabbits away from veggies using his latest invention has disastrous results, and soon Wallace has to deal with a beastly bunny as well as a heavily-armed Quartermaine. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit followed Park's previous film with the duo, A Close Shave, by ten years, and was produced after Park broke through to mainstream success with the feature Chicken Run. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Though the traditional British "Rag Week" is hard to explain to American viewers, suffice to say that the annual ceremony involves elaborate pranks and practical jokes. On this particular Rag Week, the police officers at the Gasworth district house steel themselves for the usual onslaught of stunts and gags. As the other coppers contend with a recalcitrant telephone system, Inspector Fowler and Sgt. Patricia Dawkins get mixed up with a purportedly fake bank robbery. "Rag Week" was first shown on December 4, 1995. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this amusing comedy, Sharon (Sharon Fryer) is upset when her unemployed boyfriend Anthony (Gary Webster) announces his intention to join the police force. She ends up insulting the chief of police at a local dinner, following him into the men's room to finish her train of thought. When her friend Billy (Pete Lee-Wilson) lands in jail for using the phone at work to make a request to a disc jockey, she decides to help him get out. Cameos from popular British television stars are added effectively throughout the feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

In the conclusion of "Timelash," the Borad Robert Ashby, mutant dictator of the planet Karfel, declares war on the Bandrils, the better to wipe out his own followers so that he can create a new, "superior" race. Meanwhile, the Doctor (Colin Baker) attempts to rescue Vera Rennis (Jeanane Crowley), an old friend of Peri (Nicola Bryant), whom the Borad has exiled to the Timelash, a spectral time corridor. Yet another dilemma arises when Peri is chosen to replace the Borad in the long-ago accident which so horribly disfigured him. This episode was initially titled "Conquest of the Daleks," but the Daleks were ultimately written out of the story. Scripted by Glen McCoy, the two-part "Timelash" originally aired March 9 and March 16, 1985; it has since been edited into a four-part serial for American television. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this slice-of-life film shot in 1981 for British television, a wide-ranging group of Royal Navy men -- very young men -- try to have one last reprieve on land before they take off for NATO duty. Each sailor is confronted with a unique challenge: Mark (David John) tries to help out a victim of a severe beating, Malcolm (Martin Barrass) is enjoying more than a nip or two from the bottle as he barrels toward the embarkation point on a passenger train, and a few other recruits have their love lives high on a list of priorities. Steve (John Altman) has some personal adventures as he tries to advance a romantic liaison, and Douglas (Timothy Spall) worries over leaving his pregnant wife behind, knowing she will give birth while he is gone. At times a bit slow, this drama won first prize at the 1983 Taormina Film Festival. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

In Roman Polanski's adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Nastassja Kinski plays Tess, a poor British peasant girl sent to live with her distant and wealthy relatives, the D'Urbervilles. Though Tess' father had hoped that the girl would be permitted a portion of the D'Urberville riches, he is in for a major disappointment: Tess' new housemates are not D'Urbervilles at all, but a social-climbing family that has bought the name. Tess won three Oscars, including a "Best Cinematography" statuette for the late Geoffrey Unsworth and his successor Ghislain Cloquet. The film also served to catapult Nastassja Kinski to stardom. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Force 10 From Navarone was a sequel to the 1961 blockbuster The Guns of Navarone and tells the tale of ten widely divergent WW II troubleshooters who attempt to blow up a crucial bridge in Yugoslavia. As in the first Navarone film, one of the guerillas is a traitor: group leader Mallory (Robert Shaw) knows the identity of the turncoat, but can't prove it until it's almost too late. The beautiful female resistance leader is played by Barbara Bach, while Harrison Ford, fresh from his Star Wars success, is the romantic lead. Others in the cast include Edward Fox, Franco Nero and Alan Badel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi