Hilary Bevan Jones Movies
In mid- to late-'60s Britain, an unusual yet colorful subculture sprang up and thrived as a product of the upswing in British pop music, only to meet its doom within a few short years. Though the BBC functioned as the country's main source of news and music, its programmers offered very little airtime to rock & roll -- which left an overwhelming need unfulfilled. In response, small bands of "pirate" radio enthusiasts set up broadcasting towers on boats just outside of English boundary waters, and transmitted signals to an estimated 25 million listeners, 24 hours a day and seven days per week. Unsurprisingly, the DJs who took charge of these broadcasts could rival just about anyone in terms of flamboyance and outsized personalities. With Pirate Radio (released as The Boat That Rocked in the U.K.), writer-director Richard Curtis (Love Actually) travels back to the Swinging Sixties and takes a headfirst plunge into this colorful realm.
The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O'Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show -- enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture -- but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
The story opens in 1966, aboard a rusty fishing trawler christened Radio Rock and equipped with pirate broadcasting equipment. Here, the slightly daft elitist Quentin (Bill Nighy) presides over a motley crew of joint-toking, sex-hungry disc jockeys including Dave (Nick Frost), a heavyset boob who nevertheless considers himself a hot property with women and loves to chase skirts; "The Count" (Philip Seymour Hoffman), an American DJ who aspires to be the first person to drop an F-bomb over the British airwaves; the gloom-laden Irishman Simon (Chris O'Dowd); bonked-out hipster Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke); womanizer Mark (Tom Wisdom); Angus (Rhys Darby), a New Zealander whom nobody likes; and the only female member of the group, lesbian cook Felicity (Katherine Parkinson). These misfits pull off quite a show -- enough of one that they attain the status of national idols for the youth culture -- but the super-conservative government minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) detests the whole business and will do almost anything in his power to shut them down. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, (more)
Produced for HBO, the Capraesque romantic comedy The Girl in the Café stars Bill Nighy as Lawrence, a mild and unprepossessing British civil servant assigned to his country's delegation at the G8 Summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Although he'd resigned himself to a life of lonely bachelorhood, Lawrence finds himself drawn to Gina (Kelly MacDonald), a odd, outspoken young woman whom he has met in a café. On a whim, the shy Lawrence invites the decidedly un-shy Gina to accompany him to Reykjavik. The burgeoning relationship between these two seemingly mismatched souls is counterpointed by the political jockeying at the conference, where the avowed purpose of G8 -- to adopt the all-important Millennium Development Goals as a means of reducing world poverty -- is obscured by egomania, xenophobia, and foot-dragging. Ultimately, the time comes when both Lawrence and Gina must make crucial decisions, with not only their own future but also the future of humankind in the balance. Written by Richard Curtis of Four Weddings and a Funeral fame, The Girl in the Café first aired on June 25, 2005. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Bill Nighy, Kelly MacDonald, (more)
- 2005
As originally broadcast on the BBC in 2005, To the Ends of the Earth is a miniseries adaptation of three sequential novels by Nobel Laureate William Golding: Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989). An adventure saga, it unfolds in the same time and place as Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - the high seas of the late 19th century. Against this backdrop, a young British aristocrat named Edmund Talbot (Benedict Cumberbatch) boards a British warship and undertakes a voyage to Australia, where he has been given a post in the colonial government. The program subsequently follows Edmund's adventures, in career and romance. The supporting cast includes Jared Harris, Joanna Page, Sam Neill and Charles Dance. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Benedict Cumberbatch
The government's dangerous penchant for favoring corporate interests is put to the ultimate test after an ambitious politician's research assistant perishes under mysterious circumstances, and a crime that at first appeared unconnected with the death is exposed to reveal an intricate web of lies and deceit. Stephen Collins (David Morrissey) is a rising politician with everything to lose, and his ex-campaign manager Cal McAffery (John Simm) has recently risen to fame as a respected investigative journalist. One day, on her way to work, Stephen's assistant falls to her death in the London Underground. Later, just as it's revealed that Stephen and his assistant were having an affair at the time of her death, the body of a suspected teenage drug dealer is discovered. At first it appears that these two events are completely unrelated, but a closer look reveals some deeply disturbing information about political and corporate interests becoming hopelessly intertwined. Now, as the lies, manipulations, and deceptions gradually boil to the surface, lives will be lost and friendships put to the ultimate test. Bill Nighy, James McAvoy, and Polly Walker star in the award-winning BBC series that riveted television viewers all across the U.K. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- David Morrissey, John Simm, (more)
- 2000
A sleepy Welsh coastal town turned out to be a hotbed of political corruption in the British miniseries The Secret World of Michael Fry. Ewen Bremner played the shy, retiring title character, a newly elected member of the town's council-planning committee. While pursuing a questionable but chaste Internet romance with a young porn actress, Fry inadvertently stumbled onto a sleazy conspiracy involving his fellow city officials. The two 80-minute episodes of The Secret World of Michael Fry were seen over Britain's Channel Four on April 25 and May 2, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
In this drama, John McKeown (Pete Postlethwaite) is a police detective who has come to have severe reservations about his job and his life. When two teenage boys are brought in on suspicion of murder, McKeown comes to the conclusion that the kids simply found the body while trying to rob a factory and were not involved with the killing. McKeown discovers that one of the would-be thieves, 17-year-old Dex (Jamie Draven), has no parents and is raising his younger brother and sister on his own. Dex supports himself and his siblings as a gardener and groundskeeper, for which he shows a natural talent, and McKeown believes that poverty rather than a criminal nature led Dex to consider a life of crime. McKeown and his girlfriend Sandra (Alison Newman) befriend Dex and often check in to see how he and his siblings are doing, but subsequent events lead the detective to wonder just how Dex lost his parents in the first place -- and if his role in the murder was as innocent as he first believed. The Butterfly Collector was originally produced as a three-hour mini-series for British television. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Pete Postlethwaite, Rachel Davies, (more)
- 1998
Produced for Granada Television and first shown in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre, Far From the Madding Crowd is based on author Thomas Hardy's novel of the same name. Dorset, England is the setting for what becomes a passionate love quadrangle centred around the beautiful but tempermental Bathsheba (Paloma Baeza), who manages to ensnare three men: dependable Gabriel Oak (Nathaniel Parker), shy Mr. Boldwood (Nigel Terry), and Frank Troy ( Jonathan Firth), a soldier-cum-Lothario who sweeps her off her feet before quickly realizing their relationship cannot survive. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Paloma Baeza, Nathaniel Parker, (more)
Robert Louis Stevenson's tale of high-seas adventure comes to the screen in this feature film adaptation starring Robbie Coltrane, Steven MacKintosh, and Chris Barnes. Three hapless adventurers have agreed to deliver a cargo of vintage Champagne from Australia to Tahiti. As they set sail for their destination, however, their journey takes a troubling turn when the men discover that the bottles are filled with seawater, and that their ship was meant to sink en route. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robbie Coltrane, Steven Mackintosh, (more)
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